The Big Brotherhood Program
by Idiosylph
Summary: When Mystique and Toad from the X-Men Movieverse wind up in Evo-verse, what do they do? Why adopt the hapless Brotherhood, of course! Ch. 7 Added!
1. Out With The Old

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

Chapter One

A shiver ran down his back. Mortimer Toynbee, the mutant terrorist known only as Toad to the world at large, did not like cold weather. He pulled his arms closer to his body in an effort to keep his body heat in. The hood on his sweatshirt was pulled as far forward as it would go, the kevlar vest that he wore over it offering a little more warmth. Getting up, Mort started hopping from foot to foot, just to get his blood moving. Sometimes Mortimer wondered how close to an amphibian his mutation had really made him. Maybe he really was cold-blooded in addition to having a 12-foot tongue, able to jump tall things in a singe bound and being able to adhere to surfaces.

His teeth chattering a little, Mortimer reached for his thermos. His normally nimble fingers fumbled for a moment with the cap, the bandages that he had wrapped around them causing him endless frustration. "Bloody Storm..." he grumbled, thinking back to that night at Liberty Island when he had been used as a mutant lightning rod by the X-Man. His fingers were still suffering the results of the third-degree burns that had resulted. They were healed for the most part, but the skin was still a little tender. But when one is used to precise control of one's motor skills, even a small hindrance is a source for major annoyance. Finally removing the lid, he had just enough time to get a few swallows of the warm Earl Grey before the soft hum of the Brotherhood's newly acquired helicopter (courtesy of late William Stryker) could be heard across the water.

Looking up at the clear night sky, the silhouette of the chopper slowly came into view. As it landed, the blades of the chopper kicked up a stiff wind and Mort lowered his goggles to keep dust from getting into his slightly oversized eyes. Shifting his weight slightly from one foot to the other, Mortimer couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of jealousy towards two of the four occupants of the aircraft. Not Magneto and Mystique of course, the former was needed on any important mission after all, and the latter had always gone on any mission that was deemed to be one of importance.

It was the other two in the chopper that caused Mortimer's fists to clench, despite the discomfort of the still-raw skin. Sabertooth, that brainless ball of muscle and fur, taken along for no other reason that he was strong and willing to take out anyone in the most direct way possible, and Pyro, the X-Reject with the ability to manipulate flame. Couldn't create it, just control it. Mortimer had to suppress a grin. It would be an interesting day if that kid was caught by Storm during a fight. A drenched Zippo can't be all that effective as a weapon.

As the blades slowly came to a stop, Pyro was the first to exit the chopper. He was followed by Magneto, then Mystique and Sabertooth brought up the rear. Magneto gave Mortimer a nod of acknowledgement as he passed him, and Mortimer fell into step alongside the Master of Magnetism.

"I assume that all preparations have been completed." It was more of a statement than a question. Magneto had confidence in Mortimer's technical ability if nothing else. The younger mutant just nodded in reply. He wasn't a mutant of many words, but Magneto had known Mort long enough to be able to understand his colleague's body language. A slight smile crossed Magneto's lips, a faint sign of approval that spoke volumes to anyone who worked closely with him. In silence the five mutants walked up the path the Brotherhood's headquarters. Looking back over his shoulder, Mortimer couldn't help but shake his head in amazement at how Mystique was able to handle the cold weather in... Well, in nothing. The blue skinned shape shifter was in her template body at the moment; blue skin with 'strategically' located scales.

_Bloody hell_, he thought before turning his eyes back to the path in front of him, _practically freezing out here and she's running around essentially naked_.

Behind him Mystique smiled, laughter playing in her yellow eyes. No matter how many times she saw it, Mortimer's constant bewilderment at her ability to cope with extreme tempreatures always amused her.

The procession of mutants went their separate ways once they entered the headquarters. Magneto retired to his private quarters, the events of the night having taken its toll out of his reserves of energy. Sabertooth headed off to the kitchen to find something to eat. Pyro disappeared into the common room, which Mortimer had set up with a television that he had salvaged from a dump. Mortimer turned towards his makeshift workshop, probably planning on working on one of his many salvage projects - a microwave, a toaster, sometimes something as simple as a fan. Mystique waited for a moment, considering her options. She didn't feel much like being alone right now. Contrary to popular belief, even she craved company sometimes.

Sabertooth wasn't even considered, she would have better luck having a peaceful conversation with Wolverine. Pyro wasn't much better. He was in the middle of one teenage funk or another. _Probably still pining over Rogue_. she thought to herself, her mouth twisting into a slight smirk. And since Magneto was obviously in no mood to talk, Mortimer was the obvious choice.

As she walked towards Mortimer's workshop, she noticed a gradual but obvious increase in temperature. Mystique smiled and shook her head; her colleague really did dislike the cold. Her own brisk gate allowed her to overtake Mortimer's slower shuffling one before he actually reached the sanctuary of his workshop. He gave Mystique a curious look as she tagged him on the shoulder.

"Must be a slow night if you're tagging along with me." He gave her a slight smile, actually glad of her company. Mystique was one of the few people that Mortimer actually felt comfortable talking to. Magneto would, on occasion, converse with him, but while Magneto was highly educated and cultured, Mortimer was not. Mortimer also had no inclination to talk to Sabertooth or Pyro. Those two were just idiots.

Mystique casually draped her arm across Mortimer's shoulders as he stopped to unlock the door to the workshop. "The company's good." she replied in her oddly modulated voice that almost made it sound like each of her possible shapes was talking individually. "Working on anything interesting?" she asked as they entered the workshop.

Mortimer's workshop was in a constant state of flux. The amphibious mutant had an uncanny knack for mechanics despite his lack of any real training in the subject. All around the two of them were Mort's many pet projects. Mortimer walked directly over to what looked to be a laundry machine. Mystique chuckled as he hopped on top of it and started fiddling with whatever was inside. Hearing her, Mort looked up with a grin on his face. "Got tired of hearing Pyro complaining about wearing dirty pants."

"You've been busy." Mystique noted, gesturing to the other projects in various states of completion that littered the workshop.

Mortimer snorted. "Haven't had much else to do."

Nodding slowly, Mystique had to agree. It had taken Mortimer longer than anyone to recover from the events at Liberty Island. He healed quickly, but didn't have Sabertooth's healing factor and he hadn't had the advantage of anything in the way of real medical treatment as Magneto and Mystique had, despite having some of the worst injuries out of any of them. As a result his injuries were still a lingering problem for him. A problem in the sense that it was keeping him from fieldwork and, being a mutant of near limitless pure nervous energy, that was driving him crazy. Had their cause of mutant rights been any less important, then possibly Magneto would have had Mortimer come with them. But as it was, he needed everyone on the field team to be at peak condition. "How are your hands?" she asked quietly. 

Sighing, Mortimer looked up from his work and looked down at his hands. Since he wore fingerless gloves, his bandaged fingers were clearly visible. Flexing them gently, Mystique could see his face contort slightly as his hands curled into fists. "Still sore. If I bandage them with only one layer of dressing I don't loose much dexterity, but..." he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders as he quietly went back to work. Mortimer didn't need to finish the sentence. Mystique knew that he felt, well, damaged in a way, and certainly less useful. She could just imagine what it must have been like for him when Magneto had ordered Pyro on the mission rather than Mortimer.

Mystique let herself relax on an old easy chair that Mortimer had salvaged from somewhere. From her position, she regarded her companion. Mortimer continued to work, but she knew that he was aware of her every movement. He always seemed to be aware of the movement of people around him. It was a survival technique that had helped him survive in a world that often considered him as a mistake of nature. It was the same technique she had relied on until she had been able to master her own shape-shifting abilities, and one that still served her well. They were similar in that respect; both had to hide their true forms from the 'normal' population. Maybe that was why she had stopped thinking of Mortimer as 'Toad.' That was who he was to the rest of the world, the world where he couldn't fit it, but when he was in the lair he could finally afford to just be Mortimer. Mystique had to admit to a certain fondness for the shorter mutant. Aside from Magneto, Mortimer was really the only one who she could hold a decent converstation with, and he was probably the only other one in the Brotherhood who held Magneto and their cause in the same regard as her. Overall, Mortimer was soft-spoken, the only time she had ever heard him yelling was in the heat of conflict. The only time she had heard him yell in fustration was just before he had been fried by the X-Man, Storm.

God, that had frightened her. She had thought he was dead for the longest time. It wasn't until after the events at Alkali Lake that Mortimer had been able to get in contact with her and Magneto. When Mortimer finally rejoined them at their old headquarters, he still had most of his body wrapped in bandages. He had been busy, true. The lair had been kept in good condition and in several ways improved. Mortimer had built the new common area, a training room, and even the basics of a medical facility. The latter was probably more to treat himself than anything else.

Mystique had gotten the impression that Mortimer had not been too impressed with Pyro the first time he had seen the tag-along from Xavier's school. Nor was he impressed any of the many times after that. "Are you resentful of Pyro?" she asked suddenly. Mortimer's head jerked up, and he paused for just a moment before hopping off of the laundry machine and seating himself next to Mystique on the arm of the chair.

"What tipped you off?" he asked, a rueful smile playing across his face. "The fact that I can't stand the little prat?"

Mystique slid herself to the other arm of the chair and pulled Mortimer onto the seat before slipping onto his lap. Mortimer tensed under her, and his eyes widened under his goggles. Mystique laughed gently as she moved the goggles onto his forehead. It was so cute how he got all nervous whe she got this close. Despite the odd colored skin and hair, the oversized eyes, and perhensile tongue, Toad really was attractive.

Hell, in the right situations the tongue could be considered a plus.

As Mortimer nervously writhed under Mystique, the shapeshifter smiled as she felt his highly toned muscles moving under his several layers of clothes. Muscled arms, washboard stomach, and legs that could punch holes in walls; yes, had Mortimer not been a mutant, he would have had no problems ever attracting a woman.

But as it was...

Mystique's white teeth contrasted sharply with her deep blue skin in what was almost a preditory grin.

"Mystique..?" Mortimer asked, his voice shaky.

Poor boy, she kept forgetting how unused he was to such close contact. Especially with a woman who was basically naked. Her smile softened and she nestled her head against his shoulder. The gentle action seemed to ease Mortimer a little and after a few moments Mystique felt him relax under her. "Sorry." she murmmured quietly as she settled herself.

Mortimer mubled something that sounded like "'Sokay," and the two of them simply sat there. After a minute or so Mystique felt Mortimer slip his arms around her waist and pull her a little closer. It always took him a while to get used to her being so close, but she could feel how badly he craved contact with another person. Mystique knew that she was the only one who had ever willingly come into this sort of intimate contact with Mortimer, most people were never able to get past his appearance.

Mystique had learned to get past prejudice with her shapeshifting abilities when she wanted intimate contact. It was easy for her to learn what a potential partner wanted to see and even easier to provide it. But it was only a temporary solution. She couldn't keep a shape forever, and her partners would have found out what she really was if she had stuck around. Mystique had shown one lover her real shape, an experiance she always looked back on as a lesson - evidence of the truth of Magneto's belief that humans would never accept mutants. Especially mutants who didn't look human.

Of course being around Mortimer was different. He was in the same boat as she was. He prefered her template form. When she was impersonating Senator Kelly's aid, Mortimer always urged her to return to her natural form as soon as it was safe to do so. She supposed that was what was so endearing about him; he was the only person who had ever called her - her real form - beautiful. Magneto always used words like 'superior' or 'advanced.' Not exactly words to warm a girl's heart.

Mystique and Mortimer had been sitting in silence for quite a while when the blue shapeshifter heard Mortimer sniffing the air. She sat up and looked at Mortimer, who had a concerned expression on his face. "Mortimer? What's wrong?"

"Do you smell that?" he replied, continuing to sniff as he looked around the room. "It smells like something's burning."

Sitting up further, Mystique tried to hone in on what Mortimer was sensing. After a moment, she found it. The smell was like something burning, but not something mechanical. It smelled more like ozone. Turning back towards Mortimer, she saw him nervously looking around. The smell was no doubt bringing back some painful memories, but Mortimer's expression more likely was anxiety about the potential security of his sanctuary.

"Mystique, get out of here." Mortimer's voice was nearly flat, but Mystique heard the worry in his voice. He was worried that something bad was going to happen, and he didn't want her to be here if it did.

"Mortimer..." she started to protest, but Mortimer abruptly stood up, Mystique held in his strong arms.

"Something's wrong, Mystique. This whole room feels wrong." His voice was low as he quickly started towards the door.

He only took two steps.

Before his foot fell for the third time, there was a flash of white and the two mutants fell into space.

***

"I give up! It's just never going to work!"

Professor Charles Xavier looked up to see Forge storm into his study and flop down in a chair on the opposite side of his desk. The head of the Institute didn't say a word. When Forge was ready to talk, he would.

After a few minutes of silence, Forge looked over at Xavier and sighed. "I really thought I had it this time. I really did."

"What were you working on, Forge?" Xavier asked, putting down his work to focus on the 'young' inventor.

"I was working on time travel." he replied. Noticing the characteristic eyebrow arch that Xavier did when he didn't quite comprehend something, Forge continued. "I was thinking about the machine that we were using to test Kurt's teleportation," Forge sighed, "and I got to thinking that maybe I might be able to tweek it a little so that it could be used for time travel rather than dimentional travel. You know, so maybe I could get back to the time when I got myself trapped in that pocket dimention." Xavier nodded symatheically. Forge was a young man who had lost a great deal of his life due to being trapped in a pocket dimention that extended no further than the local high school. While he had made the adjustment from the 70's to the new millinium with apparent ease, he still harbored hope of someday being able to return to his own time. Forge let out another sigh and slumped further back into the chair. "But it's useless. I gave it a test run and all I got was some dimentional static."

Xavier manuvered his wheelchair out from behind the desk and over to Forge's side. "Forge, I promise you, as long as you need our help we'll be there for you. I know that your situation is..." Suddenly, mid-sentence Xavier paused, as if listening to something.

"Professor?" Forge looked over at Xavier, slightly concerned.

The Professor shook his head. "I... I'm sorry, Forge. I thought I heard something..."

***

Mystique groaned as she struggled to sit up. The world was spinning around her and she felt faintly nausious. A familiar moan under her let her know that Mortimer was also there. "Bloody hell..." Mortimer swore, shifting his weight, "Landed on my keys."

Holding her forehead in her hands, Mystique let out a week laugh. As Mortimer shifted, she felt something press into the inside of her thigh. "Well, is that a wrench in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" she tried to sound cheerful. Mortimer looked up at her from his position on the ground and somewhat returned the smile.

"Nah, it's my emergancy flare. The wrench is in the other pocket." Then he propped himself up onto his elbows and looked around. "Where are we?"

Both mutants took in their new surroundings. It certainly wasn't the Brotherhood's lair. They were in the middle of a grove of trees and the sun shone brightly overhead. Slowly getting to her feet, Mystique looked around and caught a glimpse of something through the brush. It was a mansion. Not only was it a mansion, it was _the_ mansion. Xavier's mansion. Mortimer pulled himself up and followed Mystique's gaze, then looked back at her face. The shapeshifter was lost in thought, so Mortimer dropped back to a more comfortable position resting on the balls of his feet and waited for Mystique to finish her thought.

"Mortimer..." He looked up at her, and for the first time in a long while he read worry and confusion in her features. "Mortimer, I... I don't think that we're home anymore."

"Thought that was pretty obvious." Mortimer replied. "It's warm here, summer weather. And it's defenitely not the headquarters."

Mystique shook her head. "No, Mortimer, what I ment that I don't think we're in our dimention anymore."

Mortimer cocked his head, not quite comprehending Mystique's words. Pulling him to his feet Mystique gestured towards the mansion and to the scene that was unfolding in front of it. Of course, when he saw what she was pointing at, he still wasn't sure if he wanted to believe what his eyes were showing him. Visible through the foliage were people who _looked_ like the X-Men, but certainly not any X-Men that he knew. There was Cyclops, the visor gave him away; a red-headed girl that he assumed was Jean Grey since she was obviously using telekenisis; Wolverine was there, but dressed in an odd orange and black uniform; he saw Storm *shudder* in the air, calling lighting down from the sky; a blue teleporter kept vanishing and reappearing - Mortimer assumed this to be Kurt Wagner, the son that Mystique had told him about; the Rogue, the distinctive white streaks in her hair setting her apart; and there were a few others. A girl who kept phasing through objects, a large blue beast of a mutant, and one other mutant who kept producing what looked like bone from his body. Mortimer didn't know whether to laugh or not. On the one hand, these apparent X-Men looked like rejects from a fancy dress party. On the other hand, they were kicking the collective arses of the other mutants that he saw.

As much as Mortimer hated to think it, the only thought that ran through his head at the sight of these other mutants was _Dear lord, please put them out of their misery_.

It would have been a humorous sight except for the fact of who two of the tragically comedic mutants resembled. One, a teenaged boy, was jumping distances that only Mortimer could match. The use of a toad-like tongue only confirmed that sinking feeling. The only adult on the 'Brotherhood' side was a blue-skinned female with shoulder length red hair. She wasn't scaled like his Mystique, she was even wearing clothes. From their position, they could hear this new Mystique howl in fustration as the new Storm flung her back with a gust of wind.

The other three members of this apparent 'Brotherhood' were teenage boys, for the most part looking older than the new Toad. One was huge, looking grossly overweight but showing amazing strength. Another was barely more than a blur, rushing too and fro and landing hits whenever he could before getting clipped by an optic blast. The other boy was standing a little to the side of the conflict, focusing on the ground and causing minor tremors.

The fight was almost painful to watch. It was over in less than five minutes. After the 'Brotherhood' limped off to lick their wounds and the 'X-Men' had done a small victory dance, Mystique leaned back against a tree while Mortimer flopped back onto the moss-covered ground. Finally, Mystique looked over at Mortimer. "That had to be one of the most pathetic things I have ever seen in my life."

Mortimer just nodded. "I'll agree with you there, luv." Mystique crossed her arms and closed her eyes, thinking. Mortimer remained quiet. Outside of repair work and piloting, thinking and planning was always best left to Mystique. After a few moments, she opened her eyes and looked down at Mortimer.

"I think we have some work to do."

***

Mortimer crossed his leggs as he leaned further back into the corner of the booth of the IHOP where he and Mystique were getting a much needed meal. His eyes darted over the comics as Mystique poured over the front page. He couldn't help but snicker, _Oh, Odie, when will you ever learn not to sit on that table edge when Garfield is around?_ Daily comic strips were one of the few things he liked better about America than England. Mystique looked up from her reading to give Mortimer a quizzical look, only to roll her eyes slightly when she saw what he was reading.

After leaving the grounds of the Xavier Institute, the two mutants had cautiously made their way into the city of Bayville. Taking on one of her more inconspicuous forms, a black haired woman of average hight and wearing simple jeans and a t-shirt, Mystique had found an out of the way ATM. After making sure the coast was clear and that Mortimer had pulled the hood of his sweatshirt securely over his face, Mortimer had 'convinced' the computer in the ATM into putting out a nice withdrawl. From there they had gone to a news stand and Mystique had purchased as many different papers and news magazines as she could get her hands on. Mortimer had lingered around the back of the store, waiting for Mystique to finish. Since then they had been sitting in the IHOP, Mystique absorbing everything from the papers and magazines, and Mortimer trying to resist the temptation to freak out some of the humans in the resturant by using his tongue to eat his Rooty Tooty Fresh N' Fruity meal.

With a sigh, Mystique folded the last paper and reclined in her seat. Mortimer popped a bite of hashbrowns in his mouth as he waited for her verdict. Turning one of the papers around to face Mort, Mystique pointed at the front page. "This is the state of things." she said quietly. Mortimer looked at the picture under the headline of **Monsters Among Us?**, which showed the 'X-Men' and 'Brotherhood' mutants that they had seen earlier fighting against a huge robot that had been refered to a Sentinel.

"Well, someone's certainly managed to bugger things up nicely." he commented, pulling his hood a little further forward. If there was a rash of anti-mutant hostility, the last thing he needed to do was be obvious. Mystique nodded.

"From what I've been able to tell, those were the X-Men that we saw earlier. And those others were the Brotherhood." Mortimer groaned at the news. Mystique nodded sympathetically. "I'm not to crazy about that other Mystique either. At least this dimention's Toad is young enough that he could still be trained."

"What about Magneto?" Mortimer asked quietly. Mystique's features clouded and her eyes momentarily reverted to their natural gold. "Hmmm, that good, eh?"

"Well, from what has been reported here, Magneto seems to be a rather self-serving mutant supremicist. He also doesn't have any sense of subtlety." Mystique snorted, obviously unimpressed with what she was reading. "He seems to be more interested in personal power than in true mutant advancement."

"So what's the plan?"

Smiling, Mystique leaned over the table, resting on her elbows. "This dimention's Brotherhood, they look like a lost cause..."

"Somehow I think there's a 'but' coming into play here." Mortimer smiled under his hood.

"But, with a little training they could be turned into something effective." Mystique concluded. "I was watching this dimention's Mystique." she added slowly, "She looked like she was in charge, but she wasn't leading. She was fighting her own fight, not paying attention to what was happening to her team until they were nearly lost."

"Then let me guess the plan." Mortimer leaned forward a little. "We get rid of her, and train the kids into a proper Brotherhood."

Mystique nodded. "Exactly, my dear Mortimer. Exactly. Let's go."

"But I haven't finished my Rooty Tooty Fresh N' Fruity breakfast!" Mortimer protested, giving Mystique his best puppy-dog expression from under his hood.

Groaning, Mystique relented. "Okay, okay. Just hurry up."

Mortimer smiled. "Okay, just pass the Very Merry Boysenberry syrup, please."

"Mortimer, you are an insufferable man-child."

"Aye, but that's what you like about me."

"Mortimer?"

"Umm?"

"Finish your damn breakfast."

***

Todd Tolensky quickly ducked behind Freddy Dukes to avoid the book that came flying towards him. The Brotherhood, Todd Tolensky, Toad; Lance Alvers, Avalanche; Freddy Dukes, the Blob; and Pietro Maximoff, Quicksilver; were all seated on the couch in the house they all shared. Pietro's sister Wanda, also called the Scarlett Witch, watched the scene unfolding in front of her with mild amusement. She was pretty set in her conviction that most of the Brotherhood was a bunch of losers, and this certainly didn't do anything to eleviate that opinion.

"I can't believe you let those X-Men make such fools out of you!" Mystique practically screamed at the teenage boys, who were all looking quite uncomfortable as the shapeshifter stalked in front of them like a caged tiger. "The mission objectives were simple! All you had to do was to break into the Institute and steal a single folder out of Xavier's office, and you couldn't even manage that!"

"Come on, Mystique, they dog piled us." Todd protested, immediately regreting it as Mystique looked like she would just as soon pound his face in as anything.

"I honestly don't see why I ever bother giving you even the simplest tasks." Mystique growled. "You couldn't even manage to stay in that blasted high school."

"Woah, that wasn't our fault!" Lance shot back, "Kelly set us up. There was no way that he was going to let us get through a whole day back at that place."

Mystique glared at the defiant teen. "And you think that justifies anything?" she hissed. Lance was about to say something when there was a sudden knock on the door. Jerking her head up, she looked over at Wanda, the only one who was not in uniform. "Go see who that is."

With a exasperated look, Wanda got up and walked over to the front door. Opening it a crack, she saw a young woman dressed smartly in a black pants suit standing on the front porch. "Can I help you?" she asked warily.

The young woman smiled. "Hello, my name is Sandra Toliver. I'm looking for a Ms. Raven Darkholme. Is she in?"

"Umm, give me a minute. I'll see if she's avalible." Wanda left the door slightly ajar and walked back into the living room, Mystique and Lance still locked in a glaring battle of wills. "Um, Mystique, there's someone at the door for you."

A hiss escaped Mystique's lips as she quickly shifted into her Raven Darkholme form. Adjusting her glasses, she walked out of the living room into the hall. The Brotherhood let out a collective breath as the tension in the room dropped. "Who's at the door, Wanda?" Lance asked. Wanda just shrugged her shoulders.

Mystique walked to the door and opened it all the way. "May I help you?" she asked tersely. The young woman just smiled.

"No, I seriously doubt that you can."

Behind her glasses, Mystique's eyes momentarily flashed yellow. "Excuse me?"

Again the woman just smiled. "In fact, you're rather an obsticle. But don't worry, this will only hurt for a moment."

In the living room, the Brotherhood's attention was grabbed by the sound of Mystique hitting the floor. They all rushed to the hall in time to see the young woman flexing her fingers, standing over the unconcious form of Mystique.

"What the hell?!" Pietro exclaimed as they gathered at the opposite end of the hall from the stranger.

"Crap! That lady just KOed Mystique, yo!" Todd's eyes widened at the sight. They'd seen Mystique beaten before, but it had always been by a powerful mutant or superhuman - not just from one punch from some lady.

Lance clenched his fists. "I don't know who you are, lady, but no one comes in here and messes with the Brotherhood!"

The woman just smiled at the teens. "Is that so? Well, it just so happens that I have no intention of 'messing' with your Brotherhood." She smiled at the confused looks that fell onto their faces.

"You're not?" Freddy stammered.

The woman gave a gentle laugh. "I'm not. I'm actually here to offer you a deal."

"A deal?" Lance snorted, "Lady, we've heard that a lot lately. What makes you different from any of those other jerks who've tried to use us?"

"I've seen you fight," the woman started, "it was rather... well, let's just say lackluster."

"Did you come here just to insult us? We get enough of that already, yo." Todd hissed from his perch on Freddy's shoulders.

"I'd be insulting you if I said that I thought your performance was entirely your fault." the woman replied. "From what I've seen," her eyes drifted down to Mystique's prone form, "you suffer more from a lack of proper leadership than lack of skill." Looking back up to the teens, she gave them another smile. "Are you interested in listening?"

"Any of you say anything, and I'll skin you alive." Mystique growled, starting to pull herself to her feet. Using the wall for suport, she glared at the other woman. "Who the hell do you think you are?" she spat, glaring at the woman who stood in front of her with a smug smile on her face.

"Why, I'm you." the stranger purred softly. There was a strange sound, something akin to pebbles sliding across one another, and the Brotherhood was faced with the second blue shapeshifter that they had ever seen, abiet with scales across her body. "To be precise," she added in her odd voice, "I am a more efficient, highly trained, and heavily reenforced you."

"Guys... She's nude!" Pietro whispered to the other memebers of the Brotherhood.

"Yeah, and she ain't got any clothes on, either, yo." Todd added.

Wanda, the at the moment the sole voice of reason, was the only one who caught the last bit of this strange, new Mystique's statement. "Umm, guys, what did she mean by 'heavily reenforced'?"

"I don't know, but it's probably the only thing keeping Toad from passing out in adolecent confusion." Pietro snorted.

"Aw man, this is really akward, yo..." Todd wimpered. "I don't know where to look. I think I'll just turn around..." And with that, he hopped off of Freddy's shoulders and huddled against the wall.

The scaled Mystique smiled and laughed lightly. "Isn't that cute? Not only is he bashful, but he hopps! Mortimer, come in here, you have to see this!"

"Wot?" The group's attention was drawn to the newcomer, a green-haired man covered nearly from head to toe who wore a pair of goggles up on his forehead. He paused a moment to take in the scene in front of him. "Aww, bless. It's positively saccharine. You'd better shift yourself into some clothes, luv. I think that little bloke in the corner there is just at 'that' hight."

"Guess that's the reenforcements." Wanda muttered under her breath.

Mystique turned to face the Brotherhood. "One simple task, and we'll forget about this morning. You take care of him, and I'll take care of this second-rate shapeshifter. Got it?"

"Got it, already." Lance grumbled as the rest of the Brotherhood rallied behind him. "Come on guys, let's take down this turkey!"

"Turkey?" Mortimer gave an amused chuckle. Looking over to the side of the door he noticed a mop and plunger that looked like they hadn't been used in quite a while. Grabbing the mop in his left hand and using his foot to flip the plunger into his right, he darted backwards out into the front yard of the property. "Come on, I'll take you all on, no powers!" he taunted as he made his way to the center of the yard.

First out of the house was Pietro, who rushed around to cut Mortimer off. The other three followed quickly, surrounding Mortimer with Pietro to his front, Freddy to his back, Lance to his right and Todd to his left. Pulling himself up to his full hight, Mortimer turned to see all four boys. He rested the plunger on his shoulder as he smiled to himself, forming his plan in his head. Not waiting for Mortimer to finish thinking, Pietro rushed him, landing one blow to Mortimer's chest. The kevlar vest he was wearing absorbed most of the shock, but caused him to take a step back. "Heh, not to tough, are you?" Pietro sneered as he came around for another pass. But this time Mortimer was ready for him. Just before landing a punch, Mortimer dodged to the side and jammed the plunger into the blur that was Pietro's leggs, sending the speedster flying headfirst into the ground.

"Maybe not so tough, but I'm not so stupid either." Mortimer laughed as Pietro came sliding to a halt. Spinning around, he faced the remaining three Brotherhood members. "Next."

The Blob was the next to take a swing at Mortimer, charging with speed that was rather impressive given the shear size of the young mutant. Mortimer dug his foot into the ground, but then thought better of trying to go toe to toe with the raw force that was rushing at him. About ready to make an attempt to grab a tree branch that was just above him, Mortimer suddenly found the ground under him shaking. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Lance, eyes rolled back in his head, focusing his seismic power.

"Oh no you don't..." Mortimer growled, looking back at the Blob. He held his ground for only a second more, just long enough for Freddy to loose his own footing by rushing onto the ground that Lance had started shaking. As Freddy fell, Mortimer jumped over him, using his back as a springboard to launch himself at Lance. Focusing his power, Lance didn't see that Mortimer was in the air, only realizing it when he felt a heavy boot planted on his chest, sending him flying backwards into a tree. Mortimer was about to take another whack at him when his arm was snagged by something that jerked him backwards.

Looking around, Mortimer found that his arm had been snagged by a rather familiar-looking green tongue. Familiar in the fact that he had one just like it. Grinning, Mortimer turned and wrapped the tongue around the mop that he still held in his left hand. Todd, taken aback by the sudden move, reflexively tried to release his tongue. As he did, Mortimer wrenched the mop up and around, binding the tongue securely. With a solid jerk, Mortimer yanked the mop towards him and Todd along with it. With his right hand, Mortimer brought the plunger up and connecting the rubber end solidly with Todd's head.

Back inside the house, Wanda kept to the back of the hall as she watched the face-off between the two Mystiques. The familiar one was glaring at the scaled one, who was in turn grinning. They started circling each other slowly, each sizing the other up. With one quick movement, the Brotherhood's Mystique jumped and spun in the air, executing a perfect flying kick. Bracing for impact, the scaled Mystique took one step back...

... then quickly opened the closet door behind her.

Unable to change her movement, Mystique landed directly in the closet, the scaled Mystique slamming the door behind her. Quickly pulling a hall table in front of the door to prevent her captive from getting out. The scaled Mystique then slowly turned to face Wanda. "Plan on giving me any trouble?"

Wanda shook her head. "Nope. Mystique," she gestured to the closet, "has been running this place into the ground since she's been back. The way I figure it, you can't be any worse than her."

"So there is one with brains amoung you." Mystique cast an approving look at Wanda. "And speaking of which, let's go see how your comrades are faring against Mortimer." Walking out onto the deck of the house with Wanda following close behind, they arrived on the scene just in time to see Todd get introduced, face first, to the ground, and Mortimer starting a rousing chorus of _We Are the Champions_. Wanda groaned while Mystique laughed. "Ahh, just about as well as I thought they would. Now if you are quite done out there, Mr. Mercury, would you bring those boys inside and let them lick their wounds?"

Turning around to face the porch, Mortimer shot Mystique a grin and gave a bow before rousing the Brotherhood from their stupor. "Come on, blokes, inside. The lady has a few things she wants to talk to you about." 


	2. Negotiations

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

Chapter Two

Mortimer watched with mild interest as Mystique had the Brotherhood sit down on the old couch in the living room. After Mortimer had brought them all back into the house, Mystique had told them to go upstairs and take care of the bruses and cuts that had resulted from the fight. They had all given Mystique a look that told her that they all fully expected her to stab them in the backs as soon as they started to head upstairs. It took a few minutes of urging on Wanda's part to get them to actually go upstairs. When they came down, they had all changed out of their uniforms and looked a little more relaxed. Mystique had indicated the sofa to them and they dutifully went and sat down there with the exeption of Todd, who decided to perch on the end table, and Wanda, who sat herself down on the fireplace hearth. Mystique walked in front of the teens and regarded them quietly for a minute, her eyes resting on each one for a few seconds before moving onto the next one. Todd and Freddy squirmed nervously under her gaze, Lance looked defiantly at the blue mutant, Pietro attempted to look indifferent, and Wanda had what almost looked like curiosity in her eyes.

Finally seating herself into an old easy chair, Mystique smiled at the teens. Mortimer noticed that she was using her least preditory smile, She had shifted so that she was now dressed in a black suit in an attempt to put the boys a little more at ease. As for himself, he perched himself on the fireplace's mantle, drawing his legs up so that he was as inconspicuous as possible. The floor was Mystique's now, he didn't need to draw any of the teens' attention.

"Let's have a little talk now, shall we?" Mystique smiled. "Like I said before, I have a proposition for you all." She paused a moment, eyes closed in thought, before she continued. "As you know, you are mutants. You have an amazing amount of potential. From everything I've witnessed, your 'leadership' has done nothing with that potential other than squander it, resulting in you being beaten time after time."

All of the boys shifted uncomfrotably. Mortimer felt a bit sorry for them. There was no way that being reminded of their losses could be fun for them.

"What I am offering you is a chance to be made into a truely formitable force. We can give you the proper training and instruction that you have not recieved from _her_."

"So what makes you different?" Lance challenged. "You gonna train us up? Or are you just another mutant with their own master plan?"

Mystique leaned back in the chair. "Of course I have a master plan. It would be foolish not to have one. If you do not have a plan of your own then by default you are part of someone else's."

Leaning forward a little, Wanda had a questioning look on her face. "So? What makes your plan any better than the other Mystique's? Better than Magneto's? Better than Xaviers? Doesn't it all just come down to how each of you would use us?"

"Questioning minds." Mystique nodded, her voice thoughtful. "It's good to see that you don't blindly follow just anyone. But as to why the opportunity I offer you is any better than anyone else's, consider this: Mystique has obviously taught you nothing. She gives you orders and expects them to be carried out, but she never gave you the tools or skills to do so. Magneto is a powermonger. He hides behind a veil of pro-mutant action, but is only interested in his own personal agenda. He would simply use you until he felt your usefulness had been exhausted. And as for Xavier," Mystique just shook her head, "Xavier lives in a fantasy world if he thinks that mutants and humans will be able to co-exist peacefully. Humans fear those that are different, especially if they are innately more powerful than they are. What I propose to you is a chance to be a part of a _team_," she emphasized the word, "that works towards the advancement of mutant rights." She looked up at the teens. "This would not involve just skirmishing with the X-Men or Magneto. Neither would it even mean that you would go head to head against human forces. What I am talking about would be stratigic strikes at specific targets that are deemed dangerous to mutants. I'm talking about labs that are involved in genetic testing on mutants, organizations that advocate anti-mutant policy, or perhaps it would involve taking a proactive role in eleminating these sorts of things before they became a danger. I am offering you a chance to take a proactive role in the course of human/mutant events. You would not be expected to just follow orders. You would each have a say in what was done."

The Brotherhood was quiet. This was something altogether new to what they had ever been offered before. What Mystique was saying was right; up until that moment in time they had been just brute force. They had been told to jump and they would simply ask how high. To actualy have someone offer them a chance to be part of something bigger in a way that they would actually make a difference, well, that was different to say the least. Pietro shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was unused to hearing people talk about his father that way, but at the same time, something about what Mystique was talking about was actually making sense in a way that he really couldn't ignore. Lately, Magneto had been going more and more on some personal agenda, favoring the Acolytes over the members of the Brotherhood who were supposed to be his next generation of recruits.

"So if we do take you up on this," Pietro asked, taking the time to talk at a normal rate of speed which was unusual for him, "what do you want out of it? What do we do for you?"

"Mortimer and I train you and set you up as a unit. In return, you help us in our fight." Mystique answered. "I don't expect an answer right away. What I'm asking is a big decision, not one to be made lightly. Think it over and if the answer is no, we will leave and let your fearless leader out of the closet."

"The closet?!" the Brotherhood exclaimed in unison, with the exception of Wanda who simply supressed a laugh.

"You should have seen it." Wanda grinned, "Darkholme did this flying kick, and Mystique here just opened the closet door and locked her in. I'll bet she's nice and steamed by now."

"Oh man, we're so gonna be dead, yo." Todd groaned.

Lance jumped to his feet, "Damnit, that's it!"

Everyone else in the room looked at Lance with either shock or bewilderment. He looked at everyone for a moment and then addressed the rest of the Brotherhood.

"That's it, guys. This lady's right, we're so whipped right now we're more scared of what one person locked in a closet is going to do to us than anything else." He clenched his fist for a moment before continuing. "We've been here for how long? A year. And in that time, what _good_ have we actually done for anyone? All we've managed to do is to convince Magneto and the X-Men that we're the biggest joke in the mutant world. Mystique used Freddy, Todd and me to get at the X-Men. Magneto used Pietro to get at us. Then both Magneto and Mystique tried to use Wanda at each other and the X-Men. I'm sick of being used." He turned to look at Mystique. "You say you'll give us a shot at actually making something of ourselves?" Mystique nodded. "I can't speak for the rest of the Brotherhood, but you have me on board." 

The room was quiet for a minute. "You're sure about this Lance?" Freddy asked.

"I'm sick of being a laughingstock, Freddy." Lance answered quietly.

Freddy and Todd looked at each other for a moment, and then back to Lance. "You ain't never steered us wrong, yo." Todd ventured, "And we've always stuck together before. If you're gonna do this, then me and Freddy are gonna stick with ya. Ain't that right, Freddy?"

"Definitely." Freddy nodded. "What about you, Pietro?"

The speedster bit his lip and slumped back on the couch, a troubled look on his face. After a moment he leaned forward and looked at his sister. "What do you think, Wanda?"

Wanda shot him a surprised look. "Since when have you cared what I thought, Pietro? Why's this even an issue for you? Shouldn't you be speeding off to Father to let him know about this?"

"You'd sure think so, wouldn't you?" Pietro gave a weak laugh.

"It would be my first thought." Wanda replied. "You've always been his golden boy."

"Who he doesn't trust with any job more important than hanging around here until the mood strikes him to find out what's going on." Pietro said ruefully. "You're the powerful one out of the two of us, Wanda. You're the one he'd want on his side if you didn't hate his guts."

Wanda looked down at the floor for a minute and sighed. Pietro was fustrated, she could feel it. She knew he still desperately wanted to make their father, Magneto, proud but at the same time felt that Magneto himself was preventing him from doing that by not allowing him to take part in any of the work that the Acolytes did. "Pietro," Wanda ventured quietly, moving over to her brother and resting a hand on his knee in a sign of sisterly affection that none of the Brotherhood had ever seen her do, "I think we ought to do this. Mystique is right. Magneto isn't fighting for all mutants anymore. He's fighting for himself."

"You can always leave later." Mystique's voice broke the silence. "We're not going to force anyone to stay."

Pietro looked up at Wanda. "Lady, I think you have yourself a Brotherhood."

"That's what I was hoping you would say." Mystique smiled. "Now," she stood up and paced up and down the room casually, "I think it's only fair, given the new nature of our arrangement, that the five of you be given a chance to ask me any questions that you might have. Please feel free to ask anything you want to know, I'll do my best to answer."

Lance sat back down on the couch. "Okay, I have a question. How can there be two Mystiques?"

"Ahh, yes. That's the intersting bit of this whole thing." Mystique mused. "And I don't think I can give you a total answer simply because I don't have one for myself. The best I can tell you is that there was an occurance, the only thing I can think of being a dimentional rift, and the two of us were pulled through. The last thing we remember before winding up here is being in our base and then we found ourselves at the Xavier Institute, and that's where we watched the 'incidents' of this morning."

"So," Pietro leaned forward, "you're saying that you are basically Mystique from another dimention?"

"Basically, yes. In our dimention Mortimer and I are both members of the Brotherhood of Mutants. We were led by Magneto, and the other members were Pyro and Sabertooth. I can tell you that Magneto in our dimention is very little like this dimention's Magneto. From what I've been able to learn, about the only thing they actually have in common is their mutant ability."

"So what's the deal with Jackie Chan over there?" Todd asked, gesturing at Mortimer, who was still sitting up on the mantle.

"Mortimer," Mystique sent a sly smile over to the crouched figure, "why don't you show them what it is you do?"

"Sure thing, luv." Mortimer grinned. He gathered his legs underneath him, suddenly springing forward and landing on a far wall, his body sideways. Shooting his tongue across the room, he wrapped his tongue around the leg of a coffee table that rested in front of the couch. Lifting it off the ground, he manuvered it around Mystique, who was between him and the table and set it down. With one small hop, Mortimer pushed himself off the wall and landed squarely on the table. He let a sastisfied grin creep across his face as he observed the stupified looks of the Brotherhood.

"Holy crap..." Lance finally muttered.

"Man! That's just like me, yo!" Todd exclaimed, hopping over to the coffee table. Mortimer laughed softly, slightly amused at the younger mutant's boyant mood.

"Almost, mate. Except I'm British." He ruffed up Todd's hair a bit. "But we all can't be perfect, now can we?" he grinned.

"Just a minute," Pietro looked skeptical, "are you telling us that this guy, who single handedly kicked our collective asses, is _Toad_?"

"Well, the evidence does tend to lean in that direction." Mystique replied, sitting back down in the chair. "If my observations are worth anything, then I would have to say that all the evidence points towards dimentional counterparts usually being different from one another."

"Speaking of which, luv, what do you want me to do with our friend in the closet." Mortimer asked.

Mystique just smiled. "She's going to be going on a little trip." Looking over at the Brotherhood, she asked, "How do you think she would like Tijajuana?"

***

"Man, Mystique is gonna be pissed when she wakes up in Mexico." Freddy said, laughing as the Brotherhood relaxed in the living room.

Todd, perching on the back of the sofa, snickered, "I can't believe we actually did it!"

"Someone's gonna owe me big." Wanda grumbled, "It took most of my makeup to cover her skin."

"Wonder what's going to happen now?" Lance thought out loud.

"What you mean?" Todd asked, his head cocking to the side slightly. "We finally got Mystique off our backs for good, You oughta take a little time to kick back, yo."

Lance sighed and leaned forward. "Yeah, I know. I wanna, really I do. But I can't until I'm sure we're really, you know, really gonna be in charge of ourselves."

"Well, I hope to ease that fear, Lance." The Brotherhood turned to the door to the living room to see Mystique standing there. It was kind of odd to hear Mystique using their actual first names, the 'old' Mystique had never been that familar with them. "Are you all ready for another talk?" The teens nodded and made their way back to the seats they had been seated in earlier.

"Where's Big Toad?" Freddy asked, noticing Mortimer's absence.

"He's still at the airport, just to make sure that our friend makes her flight alright." Mystique smiled, "Oh, and it would probably be better to call him Mortimer or Mort. Toad might be too confusing as there are two. We'll figure something out when it comes down to work in the field."

"Speaking of which, mind filling us in on a little more specific information about what exactly you're gonna want us to be doing?" Pietro asked.

Wanda looked over at her bother to see a look of honest interest on his face. His expression was open and easily readable. It was rather remarkable. Just an hour ago he had severed his philisophical ties to Magneto, and in that time it was almost like he was another person. He was still arrogant and something of a jerk, but it seemed as if he was relieved of a huge weight now that he no longer had the responsibility of playing the part of a spy.

Mystique resumed her seat in the easy chair. "The first thing that I propose is actually not to take any action for now. No skirmishing with the X-Men, Acolytes or humans. I know that sounds contrary to what I was talking about earlier, but I assure you that there are good reasons."

"Which are?" Lance asked. He wasn't sure he could last long without getting into some sort of scuffle with Scott Summers or Duncan Mathews.

"First off, your lack of training. For the next couple of months, at least, Mortimer and I are going to be training you. You will learn combat skills, teambuilding exercises, and perhaps later specialized training for each of you based on your strengths. Second, we're going to do something about this house." She gestured to the surrounding room. "Frankly it's in a horrible state of disrepair and the lot of you deserve to live in something better. Third, we're going to do something about these 'uniforms'." Mystique held up a bag that held the uniforms of each of the Brotherhood save Freddy who never really wore one anyway. "No team that I have anything to do with is going to look like fugitives from a comic convention. Not to mention that for the work we will eventually be doing, brightly colored uniforms are not going to be your friends. And finally," she paused, "the five of you are going to be going back to school come September."

"Aw man, I finally thought that torture was gonna be over." Todd groaned as he flopped down on the couch next to Freddy.

Lance nodded. "Yeah, plus, we're all kind of expelled thanks to Principal Kelly."

"Oh don't let Kelly worry you." Mystique smiled wickedly. "He's a sick man with delusions of being persecuted by non-existant mutants. It would hardly be fair of the school bord to keep you out of school when it comes to light that Kelly expelled you just because you were mutants."

"Uh, but we were expelled for using powers at school against the X-Men." Freddy pointed out. "Kelly set us up."

"Like I said, don't worry about him. By the time I've finished, Kelly will look like nothing more than a hatemongering gene racist. The school board will be begging you to come back lest they risk being accused of gene racism as well." Mystique assured the Brotherhood. "Besides, I need the lot of you in school. Not only do you need the education, but you need to be aware of the X-Men. While we're not going to concern ourselves with actively engaging them, it is always important to know what the other sides are up to."

***

"Explain again why Wanda and Mystique aren't coming with us." Lance asked from the driver's seat of his old Jeep.

"They ain't coming for the simple fact that Mystique is the planner and she's decided that Wanda shows the most talent as a tactician." Mortiemr replied. "So she's going to be working with her on that. You lads on the other hand are going to be learning something different."

"Like what?" Pietro asked, leaning up over the backseat.

"Well, first thing is I'm gonna teach you all how to do some basic construction work. That's why we're going to the hardware store. We're gonna fix up that shithole that Mystique left you in. Secondly we're going to find you all some clothes that will actually do you some good when you finally start doing fieldwork again."

"What was wrong with our old uniforms?" Todd asked, poking his head up alongside Pietro's.

"Nothing, if your object is to be a moving target." Mortimer replied. "But think it through, boys. Bright green, blue? You're asking to be seen. Lance, your uniform was fine color wise, but it didn't offer you the protection for your head that you really need with a power that can literally bring down the house. As it stands, the only one of you boys that had any practical fashion sense was ol' Freddy back there."

Pietro snorted and flopped back down into his seat. As Lance turned onto the next street, Mortimer pulled his hood up and directed Lance to pull into the parking lot of a shopping center. "Hey ain't you hot, yo?" Todd asked Mortimer asked as they all piled out of the Jeep. "I mean, it's gotta be close to eighty-five degrees out. Even for me it's warm."

"Ah, but you're not green and ochre." Mortimer pointed out as he pulled his goggles down to cover his eyes.

After spending a good fourty-five minutes in the hardware store, the five mutants headed over to a nearby Gut Bomb to grab some lunch. Mortimer quickly got the teens through the line and directed them to a booth in the back corner of the restaraunt. As he nursed a soda and a serving of fries, he wrinkled his nose at the smell of the deep fried food. "'Cor, tell me you lads don't eat this stuff on a regular basis."

"Sure do." Pietro grinned, "Lots of quick energy."

"Give me a bird any day."

"They've got chicken burgers." Freddy offered.

Mortimer shook his head. "Fresh is so much nicer." he added with a grin.

"Don'twannaknow, don'twannaknow, don'twannaknow." Pietro interjected quickly. The others laughed at the image that was obviously running through his mind.

"Don't knock it 'till you've tried it, mate."

"I'm_so_notlistening..." Pietro ran his words together, causing the others to laugh more.

Mortimer leaned back into his seat, relaxing as the teens sat and talked, all eager to discuss the plans for the Brotherhood's house. They had been sitting there fore a good fifteen minutes when Lance suddenly cast his eyes over to the door of the Gut Bomb. "Guys, X-Geeks at twelve o' clock." The table fell silent as the others saw Logan, Scott, Kitty, Evan and Rogue.

"Well, this day _was_ goin' good." Todd scowled in the general direction of the X-Men.

"Easy there, lads." Mortimer urged quietly, invisible to the X-Men from his spot behind Freddy. "Remember, we're not here for any trouble and we've got as much right to be here as they do."

"They've got Daniels with them." Pietro groaned, "There's no way we're gonna get out of here clean."

"Hey, Pietro!"

"Crap..." Pietro muttered as Evan caught sight of the Brotherhood.

"What are you guys doing here?" Scott asked as the X-Men made their way over to the booth where the Brotherhood sat.

Lance glared at Scott. "We're eating luch, Summers. What does it look like?"

"What it usually looks like with you guys; trouble waiting to happen."

"Easy, Slim." came a low voice from behind Scott. "We don't need any trouble."

"Good thought, so maybe you lot ought to sod off before there is any."

Logan turned to where the voice had come from. Moving around the table, he saw a thin figure in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head, leaning back in the booth with arms crossed over his chest. Arching his eyebrow, Logan looked at Mortimer. "Excuse me, you want to repeat that?"

"You heard me, you bloody git." Mortimer smiled under his hood. "These lads are just here for lunch and don't need the likes of you messin' with them." This was too fun.

"And just who are you?" Logan asked, crossing his arms over his chest and snarling slightly.

Mortimer reached over and pulled Todd over in a brotherly hug. "Why I'm just Todd's cousin here on holiday. And believe you me, there ain't any way I'm letting me mates here get into trouble today. They still have over half of Bayville to show me."

"Toad's cousin?" Evan sniffed the air, "Well, they've got the same rotten smell."

Mortimer snorted, "And you smell like a bucket of shit, but at least I'm polite enough to keep that to myself."

"Hey!" Even exlaimed, a spike growing out through his sleeve. Rouge saw it and quickly moved between Evan and the rest of the diners.

"Lance!" Kittly looked over to her one-time beau, but was dismayed to see him leaning up against Pietro in order to keep from falling over with laughter. "Lance, do something!"

Lance managed to catch his breath for a second. "H... hey, what do you want me to do? Procupine there started it."

"And I'm finishing it." Logan cut in. "Get in line kids, we'll grab our order to go. As for you," Logan leaned over the table and squinted his eyes as if he were trying to see the face that was under Mortimer's hood, "I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Mortimer leaned forward to meet Logan's gaze, letting his hood fall back to show his green hair and ocher skin. Lifting up his goggles to reveal yellow eyes with teardropped-shaped bue irises, he gave Logan a nasty grin. "I _knew_ you X-Men used that Cerebro for something other than finding mutants, you randy little pervert." As a growl rumbled in Logan's throat, the Brotherhood burst into howls of laughter. Getting a drop on Evan was one thing, the Wolverine was another altogether. After the X-Men had left the Gut Bomb, Mortimer stood up and gestured to the door. "Well lads, our work here is done. That was fun, but now we've got some work to do."

***

Wanda rubbed some sleep from her eyes as she made her way down the stairs of the Brotherhood's home. With a yawn, she looked into the living room and was rather puzzled at the lack of noise. Normally by this time of day Todd was playing video games, Freddy was messing around in the kitchen, and Lance and Pietro would be arguing about something or other. Her stomach growled and Wanda decided that breakfast was in order. Rather absent mindedly she wondered what could possibly be left in the cabnets if the boys were already up and off to do who-knows-what. Food never lasted long in the Brotherhood's house. Between Freddy, his love of food legendary, and Pietro, whose super-fast metabolism gave him the same ravenous appitite as a ferret, there was precious little left for the rest.

To her surprise, when Wanda entered the kitchen she found the table and counters hidden under bags of groceries. A flash of blue caught her eye and she saw Mystique, her dark color nearly hiding her in the unlit corner of the kitchen, putting groceries away in the referigerator that Mortimer had managed to somehow revive the night before. She had reverted to the original blue form that Wanda had seen her in the day before, no clothes, just covered in scales. Wanda assumed that this was her basic form and shrugged it off. Unlike the boys she really didn't have any sort of hang up about Mystique's attitude about clothes. After all, it wasn't as if the blue mutant had anything that she didn't.

Another growl from her stomach caught Mystique's attention, and the shapeshifter looked over at Wanda with a smile. "Hungry?" Wanda nodded, embarrassed at the loudness of the growl. "Help yourself to whatever's here."

"Where are the guys?" Wanda asked, finding a box of blueberry Mini-Muffins and pulling out a pack as she made herself a seat on the counter.

Closing the referigerator door, Mystique folded a bag and tossed it on a pile. "They went into town to pick up a few things for the house. Make it a little more like a home and a little less like a pig stye."

"Good luck." Wanda laughed. "It's been tried before and it always looks like a mess in less time than it takes to clean it."

Having finished putting away the perishables, Mystique cleared off a chair and took a seat. "You know, I think you just might be surprised at what those boys are really capable of with the right... incentives." she mused.

"Like what? Food and video games?"

"Like proper leadership that helps to reenforce a sense of self-worth." Mystique replied. "People who are constantly told that they are nothing come to believe it. Think about it, Wanda. Look at the difference between Mortimer and Todd. What has Todd's life been like? At school he was constantly bullied, he was constantly belittled by Mystique and Magneto, and everyone who gets a chance to make a joke about his appearance will do so, even amoung close friends."

"And Mortimer?"

Mystique leaned back in her chair. "Early life was rather similar. Mortimer was left in an orphanage as a child, and was treated horribly from all accounts. He escaped as soon as he was able and Magneto brought him into the Brotherhood. Erik was something of a father-figure to Mortimer, I'm sure. Gave him gentle praise and the skills to take care of himself. As a result, Erik has Mortimer's unwavering loyalty and is the best in the Brotherhood at what he does."

"And what's that?" Wanda asked, mildly curious at the fact that Toad could be the best at anything other than being a pain in the rear end.

"Well, Mortimer is technically brilliant with mechanical technology. Not so good with computers, but with things that have moving parts you'd be hard pressed to find anyone better. He's also an excellent kick-boxer. If it weren't for the fact that his mutation probably makes him ineligable for competition, he'd easily be a world class fighter.

"He's that good?"

"Better." Mystique one upped her estimate. "He's second only to me when it comes to infiltration. Do you know he managed to crawl across the ceiling of Madison Square Station during rush hour without being seen? Well..." she paused for a moment before grinning, "at least he was unseen until he grabbed Cyclops' visor off his head with his tongue. Now the station has a new skylight and Mortimer has plans on starting a visor collection."

Wanda couldn't help but giggle a little at the thought of Summers blasting a hole in a ceiling somewhere. "I didn't realize that Toad could do so much. I mean, Todd spends most of his time bugging the hell out of me."

"True, you wouldn't think that he would be all that versitile. But when you just take a moment to think about it. I mean, just that tongue of his could be used in several non-work related instances."

"Like what?" Wanda asked.

Mystique arched an eyebrow. "Don't tell me you've lived in a house full of boys for five months and never even _thought_ about _it_."

Wanda's eyes got big and she started to caugh as she choked on one of the Mini-Muffins. "Oh, gawd... _UGH!_ No!" She shook her head violently. "No, Todd does _not_ do stuff like that. He doesn't even _think_ about that sort of thing!"

Laughing, Mystique smiled slyly at Wanda. "Come now, even Todd is just a teenage boy. Of course he thinks of that sort of thing. Just consider the possibilities, dear. That tongue of his, and if he's anything like Mortimer he's probably got great legs under those jeans of his."

"Don't tell me the two of you..?" Wanda almost looked physically ill.

Mystique shook her head no. "Not for lack of trying, but the poor dear really doesn't know what to do if a woman gets close to him." She sighed with a look of fustration crossing her face.

"Hey,we'reback. YoujustgottahearwhathappeneddownattheGutBomb..." Pietro suddenly appeared out of nowhere with the rest of the guys following him in the door a few seconds later and heading into the living room. When she saw Todd, Wanda jumped down off the counter and followed them. Lance had started playing video games while Todd had pearched on the back of the sofa and Mortimer stood beside him, both Toads watching the screen. Coming up behind Todd, Wanda grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him so that he was about three inches away from her face.

"Listen and listen good. You are _asexual_. You do not even think about sex, got that? Or else you're going to end up a mutant enuch!" Letting go of his shirt, Wanda spun around on her heel and stormed up the stairs. The three guys watched in a stuned silence for a moment, then Todd whimpered, "Man, I didn't even do anything this time, yo!"

"Special bird, you've got there, mate." Mortimer arched an eyebrow as Wanda dissapeared up the stairs. "We've got a way to describe girls like that where I'm from."

"What's that?" Lance asked.

"A **complete nutter**!" Mortimer said, calling up the stairs. The lights dimmed for a moment and Mortimer just shook his head and laughed.

***

"A Ms. Marali Pearce to see you sir." Lewis Samson looked up from paperwork that was covering his desk to see his secretary standing at his door. The president of the Bayville School Board sighed and indicated to his secretary to let his two o' clock appointment in. He wasn't exactly sure what this Ms. Pearce wanted to talk about, she hadn't said much over the phone. All she had said was that she wanted to discuss the recent expulsion of a few students from Bayville High. He really didn't have time for this. There had been a flury of paperwork with the impending start of the school year and his own vacation had made the work pile up.

"Mr. Samson, thank you for taking the time to see me."

Samson looked up to see a rather striking African-American woman, about forty years of age who had just a tinge of white starting to show in her hair. She was dressed in a conservitive black skirt and jacket with her brown eyes framed by a pair of sophisticated glasses. "Ms. Pearce, I presume?" he asked, extending a hand, which Ms. Pearce grasped firmly as she shook it. "It's always a pleasure to talk to a woman who takes an active role in the welfare of our city's children."

Ms. Pearce nodded as she took a seat in the chair that Samson gestured to. "I'll get right to the point, Mr. Samson, I'm here to talk about some students thta were expelled from Bayville High School at the end of the last school year."

"Yes, I remember you told me about that on the phone. Which students are you representing, Ms. Pearce?"

"Lance Alvers, Fred Dukes - both were juniors, Pietro Maximoff - he held sophmore status, and Todd Tolensky who was a freshman. They've recently been placed into my care since their previous gardian has seen fit to abandon them."

Samson's expression grew concerned. "Those students were expelled because of reckless and dangerous behavior, Ms. Pearce. You were informed of their, er, 'records' when you agreed to take them into your care, were you not?"

"I was quite aware of their circumstances." Ms. Pearce replied, a hard edge creeping into her voice. "I am also aware that they had been exposed to some extreme pressures and hardships that children of their age should not have been exposed to. Their caretaker left them to fend for themselves for extended periods of time, were living in abysmal conditions, and we won't even get into the fact that the school did nothing to help them." Samson started to look rather uncomfortable as the edge in Ms. Pearce's voice grew harder. "That situation would have been hard enough on normal children, but when the children in question are _mutants_, they have the added difficulty of dealing with classmates that do not even consider them to be people. If you want my opinion, it took a great deal of restraint on their part not to lash out at those people who were tormenting them in a way that caused perminant harm. Besides," her voice took on a lower tone, one that was almost more dangerous, "I don't think it would look very good in the paper to have it come out that the Bayville Schools are descriminating against students who just happen to have an X-gene."

Samson frowned. "What exactly are you implying, Ms. Pearce? It's the school board's policy not to discriminate on any basis, mutations included."

"Oh, I hardly think that it's a system problem, Mr. Samson." Ms. Pearce leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers together. "If that were true then the students who reside at the Xavier Institute would not have been allowed to remain at Bayville. But I have reliable information that Edward Kelly created a situation where he knew the results would be, well, explosive."

"The students from Xavier's didn't start terrorizing the student body." Samson pointed out.

"But the students from Xavier's are all fairly well-adjusted teenagers. They don't have a history of abuse and neglect. Of course my charges reacted the way they did. For the first time in their lives, they didn't feel like they had to be afraid."

Sighing, Samson took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. This was difficult. On the one had, it was no secret the Kelly was almost fanatically anti-mutant, and it was also common knowledge that the boys that Ms. Pearce was now in charge of were all from troubled backgrounds.

"_If_," he eventually ventured, "I convince the rest of the board to re-admit these boys to Bayville High, would I have your personal guarentee that they would cause no disciplinary problems?"

The faintest trace of a smile crept onto Ms. Pearce's face. "I would give you not only my complete assurances, but my word that the first time any of them stepped out of line I would personally see to it that they would not step foot onto school grounds again."

"They would have to be put on a probationary period, of course." Samson added quickly.

"Of course." Ms. Pearce nodded. "I would expect nothing less."

Well then," Samson stood up and reached across the desk to shake Ms. Pearce's hand, "I'll be at Bayville High personally to welcome them back on the first day of classes."

Shaking Samson's hand, Ms. Pearce smiled and stood up. "I'm glad to hear that. Oh, before I go, there is one other matter to take care of. Recently Wanda Maximoff, Pietro Maximoff's twin sister arrived in Bayville. She will also be attending Bayville High in the fall."

"Very well. If you leave her paperwork then I can get her registered when I take care of the boys." Samson replied as he escorted Ms. Pearce to the door. "And I'll speak to Mr. Kelly and let him know about our new arrangement."

"Thank you, Mr. Samson."

Leaving the office, Ms. Pearce quickly walked out of the building. Outside she saw Lance in his old Jeep and waved. He returned the wave and pulled along the sidewalk so she could climb into the passenger seat. "Well? How did it go?"

"You're all back in." Ms. Pearce replied, quickly scanning the road. Seeing no pedestrians, she quickly shifted back to her own shape. "But you'll have to spend a while under a probationary period."

"Probation?" Lance arched an eyebrow.

"I think he wants to be sure you five aren't going to level the school." Mystique replied.

Lance grinned. "Hey, I only did that once, and it wasn't even in Bayville." Mystique laughed as the Jeep sped down the road towards the Brotherhood's house. "Almost took out two X-geeks, too." 


	3. School Days And No Powers

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

Chapter Three

"_What_ are you doing here?!" Lance wasn't sure, but he was pretty certain that behind the red glasses, Scott Summers was glaring in an attempt to kill by will alone.

The two groups of mutant teens stood across from each other, each lining a side of the hallway. The tension in the air was almost a physical presence, and the human teachers and students kept casting nervous glances at them. "Same reason you are, Summers." Lance shot back. "Turns out that school isn't the drag we thought it was."

The X-Men looked doubtful. "So you're saying you've all seen the light and are on the straight and narrow?" Rogue snorted. "Like we belive that."

"Look," Lance snarled, "we're not here for trouble. We're here for class. You've got a mind-reader," he pointed at Jean, "you figure it out. There's no way we're gonna get tossed out of here again. And not on the first day back."

The bell for first period sounded, sending students scrambling to make it to class before the second bell. "Well,there'sthebell,catchyoulatter." Pietro cut in, grabbing Wanda by the arm and dragging her off to their first class. The X-Men watched as the Brotherhood broke off to go to their various classes.

"What do you think, fearless leader?" Kurt asked as Scott's hands clenched into fists.

"We can't do anything." he answered, "They haven't done anything... yet. Everyone, keep an eye out for anything today."

***

_RIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!_

Xavier looked up from his book. The phone on the nearby table was ringing for the third time that day. He sighed. If this was another collect prank call from Tijajuana...

Meanwhile... In Tijajuana...

"Pick up the damn phone, you fucking telepath!" Mystique hissed under her breath.

***

_Finally, last period._ Scott walked into the art room where the art history class was held.

"Yo, Summers!" Scott's blood froze. He slowly looked over to the far side of the room to see Todd sitting at one of the desks near a window. Or more accurately he was lounging as he was slumped down in the seat, legs stretched out in front of him.

Scott looked shocked. "You're in this class?"

Todd pulled himself up in the seat and leaned forward over the desk. "Yeah. I'm into art and all that, yo. Diddn't know you were too."

Scratching his head, Scott looked somewhat confused. "Actually, I'm just here for the fine art credit."

Todd snorted and slumped back in his seat. "Philistine."

"Do you actually know what that word means?"

Todd cleared his throat. "Philistine: As a noun, a person who is generally from the middle-class who shows ignorance or antagonism towards the arts or of a particular subject."

"Ah..." Scott really wasn't sure what to say, so he just found a seat and sat down.

"Yeah, you just sit down, Summers." he heard Todd snicker from across the room. "I'll just sit here and bask in the glory of the great masters." He opened his textbook and started reading. "Ahhh, Hiroshige. The West truely does not understand your genius."

Scott shook his head. This was going to be a surreal class.

***

"Can you belive that guy is in culinary arts class?" The four girls sat a short distance away from Freddy as the class worked on baking oatmeal rasin cookies.

"Yeah, but he bakes cookies like no one's business!" another girl replied, munching on a cookie that was still warm from the oven.

"He's one of those mutants, isn't he?" a third girl asked. The second one nodded.

"Hangs out with Tolensky, Alvers and Maximoff."

"Hard to belive he's really the kinda guy who bakes cookies." the first girl said, still somewhat dumbstruck.

***

"Did it hurt?"

Wanda looked over at the blond-haired jock in a letterman's jacket sitting next to her in her journalism class. "_What_?

"Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven, 'cause there's an angel running loose down here."

"Is this some sort of lame attempt to flirt with me?" she asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Duncan Mathews doesn't 'attempt.'" he replied, flashing a smile.

Wanda cupped her chin in her hand and leaned on her elbow. "So you just always fail?"

"Feisty. I like that." Duncan sat down next to Wanda as she just rolled her eyes. She'd heard of Duncan Mathews from other members of the Brotherhood and had a pretty good idea of what to expect. She didn't think he'd normally hit on someone like her, but of course he didn't know that she was a mutant, Pietro's sister, or that she was a goth girl who just happened to be wearing plain denim jeans and a white turtleneck. "So, what will it be? Dinner and a movie or just straight to Makeout Point?"

"You know," Wanda leaned back, "I didn't think it was _possible_ to actually be more annoying than Todd."

"Todd?" Duncan looked confused, then a look of dawning comprehension crossed his face. "Todd _Toad_ Tolensky?"

"Ah, you know him." Wanda smirked and turned back to her book.

"And you're comparing me to him?"

"I guess I really shouldn't." Wanda paused, looking up from her book for just a moment. "I mean, he's not a pretentious, self-important egotist."

"Woah, don't tell me the two of you..?"

Wanda shot Duncan a glare to kill. "No. But I would say that he's got a better shot that you do."

***

"Man, first day of gym and they've already got us running laps." Lance groaned as he flopped back down on the bleachers after he and Pietro came out of the boy's locker room, where they had just come from changing out of their gym gear and collecting their backpacks. Pietro just mumbled something in reply as he sat down next to him. "What did you say?" Lance asked.

Pietro looked over at Lance. "I said, 'You've got it easy'."

"Easy?" Lance huffed, "You're the one who does all the running. This should be a piece of cake for you."

"Except I'm not allowed to use my powers." Pietro replied, "Which means that I've had to deliberately slow down all period. Do you have any idea how hard that is?"

"So what, you been jogging or something?"

Pietro shook his head. "That's still too fast. You know that stage that's too slow to be a jog but defenitly not a walk?" Lance nodded. "And you know how it's probably the speed that tires you out the fastest?" Lance nodded again. "_That's_ what I've been having to do all period." Lance winced a little. Now that he looked at Pietro, the white-haired teen did look more tired than normal. Pietro sighed. "Well, I guess it'll help build up endurance or something, but I tell you, I can't wait for winter so we'll be doing something that involves less running. Vollyball or something."

Lance looked across the gym. Evan and Kitty were talking as the two headed towards the locker rooms. They had just come in off the track after finishing the mile run-walk that was the day's 'assignment.' When Lance and Pietro had been on the track, the two pairs had taken care to stay on opposite sides of the track in an amazing show of self-restraint on both Evan's and Pietro's part to keep from letting their rivalry surface. As he looked across the gym, Kitty looked over and caught his gaze. She shot him a look and quickly turned away.

Lance frowned, he didn't see what her problem was. It wasn't as if the Brotherhood had been causing the X-Men any problems since last April at the school board meeting. And before that they had actually worked together against the Sentinels and Juggernaut. The Acolytes and various anti-mutant groups had been the biggest pains in their X-butts for the past couple of months. She was probably still pissed about the incident at the Gut Bomb. Lance grinned, that had been funny. The smile dissapeared just as quickly as the two X-Men came over to the bleachers.

"Not very fast today, are you Pietro." Evan taunted. Pietro glared at him, but was too tired to make any sort of retort.

"Get lost, Daniels." Lance growled. "We're not looking for trouble."

"For once." Kitty didn't look totally conviced.

"Hey, watch it kitty-kat. Just because we're not all sugar coated like you doesn't mean we want to start something."

"Sorry if we find that a little hard to swallow." Evan took a step towards the two Brotherhood mutants, but before Lance could do anything in response, Pietro got between the two of them.

"Let's go, Lance." he grabbed Lance's shoulder and turned him in the direction of the auditorium where they had planned to meet the other Brotherhood members. "We're this close to making it through the first day, and I want to make sure Wanda's classes went smoothly." With one last look over his shoulder at the X-Men, Pietro pulled Lance towards the doors to the halls.

Lance pulled his shoulder away. "What's eating you, Pietro?" Lance asked, "That actually hurt."

"Sorry." Pietro said quietly as they reached the auditorium. Leaning up against the wall, the speedster let himself slump down to the floor. Lance looked down at Pietro and started to grow concerned. Pietro's normally pale skin had nearly gone white and he was sweating as he wrapped his arms around himself in what looked like an effort to keep warm. "Lance, do you think you could see if the cafeteria has any vegetables or cheese or something?"

Kneeling down next to Pietro, Lance looked at Pietro's face and saw that Pietro's eyes were glazed and rather unfocused. "You alright, Pietro?"

"Not really." Pietro laughed weakly. "I'm kinda crashing, I think.

"Do you want a soda or anything?"

"No, sugar right now is a bad thing." Pietro replied. "I forgot all about it." He shook his head, looking a little dizzy.

"Forgot what?"

"You know all that sugar I eat?" Lance nodded. The ammount of sugar that Pietro consumed on a daily bais was enough to send most people on a sugar high that would last days. "Well, normally it doesn't do anything to me because I just run it all off. But I've been slowing down all day and I didn't bother adjusting my sugar intake."

Lance wasn't quite getting what Pietro was saying.

"If I don't readjust my sugar intake, I get kinda hypoglycemic. I just need to get something in my system without sugar in it."

"Ah, okay. Gotcha." Lance stood up. "Freddy had his cooking class last period. He might still be in the room and I'll bet they've got something. I'll be back in a few minutes." Quickly turning, he rushed off to the room where Freddy hopefully still was.

Thankfully, Freddy hadn't been in any hurry to leave class. He was good in the kitchen and had honestly been enjoying the lesson. He was chatting with the teacher when he saw Lance rush through the door. "Hey, Lance. What's up?"

"Freddy, I need your help. Pietro's gone hypogly... shoot... Well, he's crashing and he needs something without sugar to eat. He's looking pretty bad."

"Hypoglycemic?" The teacher ventured. Lance nodded.

"Yeah, that's it!"

The teacher quickly walked over to a large fridge that held supplies for class. She pulled out a bag of carrots and tossed them to Lance. "Make sure he eats all of those." she instructed, "And he should probably see a doctor."

"Thanks!" Lance said as he turned towards the door. "Come on Freddy. I'm probably gonna need your help to get him to the car."

"Right behind you." Freddy replied as he headed out the door behind Lance.

The two quickly made their way through the halls and by the time they reached the auditorium they found Wanda kneeling next to Pietro. "Hey, Pietro," Lance tore open the bag of carrots and gave one to Pietro, who slowly started munching on it.

"Thanks, guys." he said quietly. "Guess I'm just gonna have to carry something around with me for after gym." Pietro made another attempt to laugh, but Wanda gave him a gentle hug and quieted him down.

"Shut up you and eat your veggies."

"Gotcha."

"Hey, what's going on, yo?" Todd slowly walked up to the others.

"Aw, Pietro just forgot that he needed to eat his veggies after gym class and... _WHOA!_ Todd, what in the hell happened to you?" Lance exclaimed, seeing a nice new shiner over Todd's left eye.

Todd anxiously rubbed his toe against the tile floor. "Mathews." he mumbled.

"Tell me you weren't being sticky-fingered again."

Todd looked indignant. "No way, yo! I donno what I did. I was just coming out of last period and then Mathews had some sort of overwhelming desire to re-introduce his fist to my face."

Wanda groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh gawd... Figures he'd do something idiotic like that."

The Brotherhood looked at Wanda, confused. "How do you know him, Wanda? You couldn't have met him before today." Freddy pointed out.

"The jerk is in my journalism class. He was hitting on me today."

"_What?_" Todd and Pietro hissed in unison.

"I brushed him off." She sighed. "I told him that I thought he was a hell of a lot more pathetic than Todd. I guess he really took that as an insult."

"He was hittin' on you?" Todd asked, more upset about that than the black eye.

"I'm gonna kill him." Pietro's fists clenched.

"Oh no you're not." Todd cut in. "I wanna do it!"

"I'll settle this, neither of you are gonna kill him." Wanda snapped. "Anyway, I have a better idea."

***

"We're home!" Wanda called as she opened the door to the Brotherhood's house. From the living room there was the sound of Mortimer working on something. Peeking in, they saw the television spread across the floor and Mortimer hunched over a spread of pieces. He gave the teens a wave without looking up. "Um, Mort, could we talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure." Mortimer looked up but froze when he saw the black eye that was standing out quite well against Todd's pale skin. His left eye had nearly swollen shut and bits of were turning an unhealthy shade of green. "What happened?" He asked, his voice low and sounding very dangerous.

"Well, there's this guy at school..."

***

Duncan Mathews walked past the back of the gym after the first day of preconditioning for the upcoming football season. His car was parked in the far lot, further from the school and a little out of the way, but fewer underclassmen drove around there and it was closer to the field anyway.

At first he didn't notice the dark figure in the shadows.

At least not until the figure grabbed him by the shoulder. "H... Hey! What's the big idea?!" Duncan exclaimed as he tried to spin around. He tried to break free of the stranger's hold, but he was held in an iron grip that refused to let go.

"Big man picking on people littler than you." The voice from under the stranger's hood was enough to make Duncan's blood run cold.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Duncon whined.

"Bullocks." the figure hissed. "Just keep this in mind, mate: Be careful about picking on people who can't fight back. That sort of thing has nasty way of coming back to kick you in the arse." And with that, the figure roughly shoved Duncan aside as he dissapeared back into the shadows.

***

"Aw man, I can't believe you did that, yo!"

"Don't worry. It's the only time I'm going to." Mortimer replied as Todd hopped from one foot to the other. "Fighting your battles isn't going to do you any good, and frankly I have better things to do with my time. But," Mortimer smirked, "it was a laugh seeing that little git shit his pants."

Todd crossed his arms over his chest. "So then why'd you go and rough him up? I don't need everyone to act like I can't take care of myself. Just because I'm the youngest don't mean that I'm a little kid."

Mortimer looked up from the engine of Lance's Jeep. "I know that, mate. But the thing is, we don't need that Mathew's kid causing us any trouble. I know his type. He'll just keep at you until you loose your temper and then you'd be out of school without a second chance. You could kill him, you know."

"Kill him? No way, yo." Todd snorted.

"Don't think so?" Mortimer replied, "Just think about it. You can jump huge distances, right?" Todd nodded. "Think about how much strength has to be in your legs in order to do that. I can put my foot through a wall if I want to. A human chest or limb is a lot weaker than that. One good kick could cripple or kill him."

Todd looked skeptical. "You're not kidding me about that?"

Setting down the wrench he was holding, Mortimer walked over to the old washing machine that had given up the ghost the previous night when the internal mechanism had decided to burst into flames. He stretched out his right leg a little and then slammed his foot into the side, managing to go right through. After carefully pulling his leg out, he turned to Todd. "Convinced?" Todd just noded.

"You ever... take anyone out that way?" 

"No." Mortimer shook his head, then he grinned. "Knocked an X-Man down an elevator shaft though. That was fun."

"Yeah?" Todd laughed and hopped back over to the Jeep. "Which one?"

"Storm." Mortimer replied. "Knocked her right down. 'Course she survived. I think those X-Men are blasted near invunerable." He flexed his hands unconciously. "Bloody hell," he growled as he turned back to the Jeep, "Lance needs a lesson in basic auto care. Here, mate." Mortimer pulled off his sweatshirt and t-shirt, tossing them to Todd. "Only shirt I've got right now. Not a good idea to get covered in grease."

Leaning over the engine, Todd watched Mortimer work on the engine, asking a question here and there. After a good half hour of tinkering, Mortimer had Todd hop into the driver's seat and turn on the engine. Once it was running, it purred like a cat and Mortimer stepped back and cleaned his hands off with a rag. "Boy, that sounds great!" Todd quipped as Mortimer closed the hood.

"Right that." Mortimer agreed. A moment later, a whistle came from down the road and both Toads looked over to see Mystique and Wanda returning from a trip into town. Mystique had a naughty smile on her face and Wanda looked rather embarrassed and was suddenly finding the road really interesting.

"Thanks for the view." Mystique called as she shifted from her 'Ms. Pearce' shape back into her template body. Wanda just quickly ran into the house.

"What's up with her?" Todd asked as he and Mortimer walked over to the porch.

"I think she's having trouble getting over the fact that someone named 'Toad' could have a six-pack." Mystique laughed as she slapped Mortimer lightly on the stomach. Mortimer just snorted and pulled his shirt back on.

"Don't see what's so weird about it. The kid just never had the right training."

"And on that note," Mystique raised a finger, "we need to talk about what sort of conditioning these kids need."

Todd looked curious. "What do you mean by that?"

Mystique smiled. "You didn't think we were just going to throw you out on a mission eventually with just a high school deploma to fight with, did you? We're going to make sure that each of you is prepared for anything you might encounter."

"Oh. That's cool." Todd replied as he hopped into the house.

"Were you that layed back as a kid?"

"Nope. Of course, the streets of London are a little more rough than the mean streets of Bayville."

***

"Okay, you want to explain again why you're strapping ten pound weights to Todd's arms and leggs?" Pietro asked as Mortimer finished fastening the weights on.

"Simple." Mystique answered. "It's an easy way to work on building muscle. It's the same way that Mortimer started his training. Todd just wears them during the day and when it gets to the point that he's used to the ten pound weights, we'll up the ammount. And speaking of which," she pulled out another box and tossed it to Pietro. "you get to do the same thing."

Todd snickered. "Hey, Pietro, twins!"

Pietro arched an eyebrow as Freddy, Lance and Wanda tried contain their laughter. With a sigh, he pulled the weights out and strapped them on. "Daniels is going to get a laugh out of this during gym class." he muttered under his breath.

Todd meanwhile, was testing the new weights. "Man, I can't lift my arms above my waist, yo." he whined.

"Then I guess it's a good thing we started this on a Friday." Mortimer grinned as he gave Todd a shove in the direction of the couch, which he fell into rather clumsily. "You got the whole weekend to get used to them. I'll give you a few minutes and then we'll see how you two do moving around in them."

Pietro lifted his legs. "This is... restricting."

"I don't expect you'll have to wear them for more than a few months." Mystique replied. "And once they're off we'll see if we can't shave a few seconds off your half-minute mile." Pietro looked a little unsure, but didn't say anything. He had put himself into the hands of Mystique and was going to follow through.

"Now come on, you two." Mortimer pulled Todd back up from the couch. "Let's see how well you two can handle forty extra pounds."

"I'm not gonna get off the ground." Todd said as he practically dragged his feet across the floor and made his way to the front yard. Mortimer just laughed as he gave Pietro a look.

"You too."

"Right behind you." Pietro answered. He still moved quickly, but there was a marked decrease in speed.

The others watched as the three exited the house. "So what's up for the rest of us?" Lance asked.

Mystique took her now usual place in the armchair. "I'm working on understanding the precise nature of each of your mutations. Once we understand that, we will be able to be able to decide the best course to take in each of your training. Now Wanda," Mystique gestured over to her, "seems to have recieved a good deal of training in regards to the control of her powers already."

Wanda nodded, "The other Mystique had a woman named Agatha come and help me for the first few weeks I was here."

"Then you probably require the least training in terms of your abilities. However, I would like to see how you fare in terms of some more conventional skills." Mystique looked thoughtful.

"What sort of skills?" Wanda asked, curious.

Mystique shrugged. "You know, the basic skills that any self-respecting mutant... 'activist' knows. Infiltration, computer cracking, that sort of thing." She smiled slightly, cocking her head slightly to the side. "Now as for the two of you," she looked over to the two remaining boys, "I think we'll have a little Q and A time to see if we can't better understand your mutations. Now, Lance, what is it exactly is it that you do with your mutation?"

Lance didn't even skip a beat before answering. "I cause earthquakes."

Leaning back in the chair, Mystique regarded him carefully. "And just how do you do that? Is it like Storm and her control of the weather? Do you have a conection with the earth?"

"I... I'm not sure." Lance admitted. "I've never really thought about it like that before."

Mystique smiled, but it was a gentle one. "Most mutants don't. That's why humans are able to treat us they way they do. We cannot do anything until each of us is able to use our powers to their full potential." She leaned forward again. "So let's think about it. Close you eyes and pretend you're about to use your abilities." Lance closed his eyes, somewhat self-conciously, and raised his hands a little like he would when he was about ready to cause a tremor. "Now, think about what you are about to do. I know when you normally use your powers you generally don't really think about the process, just the result, but try."

Taking a breath, Lance attempted to center on that spot in his head that always raged with pain when he used his powers and concentrated.

Meanwhile, Mortimer was putting Pietro and Todd through their paces with the forty pound weights strapped on. Pietro had still managed an impressive few laps around the house despite the weight, but when he finished he was breathing heavily. "And I gotta go to school with these things on?" he asked, tossing a pleading look at Mortimer, who just nodded in return. "Well, misery loved company, I guess." he huffed as he sat down next to Todd.

"Guess it's my turn, huh?" Todd asked.

"Yup, hop on down." Pietro replied.

Todd got up off the porch and walked over to Mortimer, still dragging his feet. ""Cor, that brings back memories." Mortimer laughed softly. "I remember shuffling around Magneto's lair for months before he let me take the weights off. I cursed him out every time I saw him for about two weeks."

Todd and Pietro looked at Mortimer as if he had just told them he had waltzed with lowland mountan gorillas infected with the ebola virus. "And you're still standing?" Todd stammered. "How come you're not a smear on the pavement, yo?"

"Honestly, I think I amused him." Mortimer leaned back against the Jeep and looked thoughtful for a moment. "I mean, come on. I was a sixteen year old kid, probably weighed 150 pounds soaking wet, and I was thowing every four letter word I knew and a few I was making up on the spot at someone who is probably one of the most powerful mutants on the face of the bloody planet. Now come on, Todd. Let's see how much of a hinderance those weights are going to..."

Suddenly, all three mutants were slammed to the ground, hit by something that was almost like a sonic boom but was silent and moving much slower. Pietro was the first to his knees and wiped the dirt off his face. "What the hell was that?" They raced inside as fast as they could, not sure what to expect. They found the others laying at various points in the living room, the furniture knocked over and Lance standing in the middle of the room with a dazed look on his face. After a few minutes of stunned silence, Mystique crawled up over the armchair with a wry grin on her face. "Well, I think that experiment went quite well."

"Experiment?" Mortimer sounded confused, "Mystique, luv, it looks like a bloody earthquake hit. What were you all doing in here?" He carefully made his way into the room, as Freddy helped Wanda to her feet and started to pick up furniture. Reaching Lance, Mortimer gently pushed him back onto the couch.

Todd followed Mortimer in and looked at Lance. "Hey, is he okay?"

Mystique nodded. "He should be fine. I think he just experianced his mutant ability with a little more intensity than he's used to. I have to admit though, I didn't think that having him focus so much would result in that surge."

"I thought he just made earthquakes." Pietro picked his way over to the couch. "That felt like a wave or something."

"I think we all misunderstood Lance's abilities a little, Lance included." Mystique replied.

Lance was finally coming out of his stupor. "Woah..." was all he could get out as he slowly shook his head, "That was intense..." Lance looked up and was shocked when he saw the state of the room. "What happened?"

"We thought we'd try redecorating while we waited for you to regain conciousness." Wanda replied dryly.

Mystique pulled herself up to her feet and walked over to the couch. "It would seem Lance, that your power is less earthquake specific and more of just a general seismic wave that we just might be able to work on focusing."

Lance looked around the room. "Yeah... But maybe we ought to do it outside next time."

***

"Lurking in the shadows isn't neccesary, Mystique." Xavier looked up from his book. Slowly swinging his wheelchair around to face the female figure that was concealed in the shadows. "You should know by now that sneaking up on me is near impossible. Come, have a seat." He gestured to a wingback chair that was nearby. Xavier saw Mystique's shoulders stiffen at the knowledge that she hadn't been all that sneaky after all, but she eventually made her way to the chair and sat down, a sour look on her face. "Now, what can I do for you?"

A flury of emotions ran across Mystique's face. Anger, trepidation, embarrassment about having to ask Charles Xavier of all people for help. "I need you to do something for me." she finally spat out, just trying to get the fowl taste of pleading words out of her mouth. Xavier mearly arched an eyebrow and leaned back into his chair, fingers pressing together. It wasn't often that Mystique humbled herself to the level of actually _asking_ him for help. Generally she would try blackmail or hostage taking first.

"And what is it that you need me to do?"

"There's another shape-shifter in Bayville," Mystique started, "and currently she's masqurading as me in the Brotherhood."

A small smile played across Xavier's lips. "Another shape-shifter is impersonating you? Excuse me for a moment while I drink in the irony of that idea."

"I hate you." Mystique growled.

"I am quite aware of the fact." Xavier replied. "I am a telepath."

"I'm worried for them, Xavier. I don't know what that woman will do.

Xavier frowned. "Are you worried _for_ them, or worried about what this shape-shifter will have them do?"

"What kind of question is that?" Mystique shot back, "I took those children in when no one else would. I gave them food, shelter and a reason to exist!"

Xavier just regarded her cooly, his poker face perfect. "They've returned to school, Mystique. All of them, Wanda included. And from what my students have told me, they are actualy doing well and showing great restraint in using their powers."

Mystique's fingers changed slightly into more claw-like apendiges as they dug into the arms of the chair. "But they're still in that house with that fucking psycopath who knocked me unconcious and sent me on a one-way flight to Tijajuana!"

Xavier's eyes got a little bigger. "Tijajuana?"

"Yes, Tijajuana." Mystique hissed. "I actually tried calling this blasted place, but I guess no one was here."

"Probably not." Xavier replied and to quickly wrap up the conversation, added, "If it will help, I will try and contact this other shape-shifter and see if I can't find out what she wants."

"I suppose it will have to do." Mystique reponded. She got up out of the chair, which by now had ten clawed lines in the arms, much to Xavier's dismay. As she turned to leave, she handed Xavier a slip of paper. "You can contact me here. And I _do_ expect to be contacted soon."

Xavier was rather suprised to see Mystique leave via the main door, but didn't linger on the fact. No doubt that was how she had indeed come in. She had probably just shifted to look like one of his students or staff.

_Jean,_ He sought out the mind of student best capable of the job he had in mind, _I would like to talk to you for a few minutes. Please come to the library._

***

"What's this?" Mystique asked as Freddy handed her the envelope that Jean had given him that day during English class.

"Not sure." he answered honestly. "Jean just said it was from the Professor and that it was important for you to get it."

Mystique shifted a rather Wolverine-ish claw out from her arm, much to Freddy's amusement, and sliced open the envelope. Her golden eyes scanned over the contents for a moment and a smile slowly crossed her face. "Well, well, well. It seems as though your former so-called-leader has finally gotten back from her little vacation."

"Wot's this I hear?" Mortimer said as he hopped into the room, a habit he found he had been catching from Todd, "Did someone say that the bitch is back?" He grinned in Freddy's direction as the larger mutant suppressed a laugh.

Mystique nodded as she 'retracted' her 'claw.' "I did. And it would seem as though she has actually persuaded Professor Charles Xavier himself into interceeding in her little cause. He wants to meet with me and talk about 'things.'"

"Is that so?" Mortimer stood up and leaned against the door jam. "So what's the plan going to be?"

Mystique shrugged and returned the letter to the envelope. "I'm going to meet him. Xavier is a man who prefers to have all sides of any issue before he does anything. Freddy, do you have some paper and a pen in that backpack of yours?"

"Sure," Freddy pulled out the requested items out of his pack. "What you need them for?"

"It certainly wouldn't do to have the good professor waiting, Freddy. It's just good manners." Mystique gave him her best Donna Reed smile. Taking the pen and paper, she quickly scribbled a reply down and handed the completed note to Freddy. "Take this to school with you tomorrow and make sure one of Xavier's students gets it back to him." Freddy nodded and shoved the note into his culinary arts book where he would be sure to remember it.

"Going into the lion's den?" Mortimer asked.

Mystique shook her head. "I don't think any of us need to be near that Institute for a while yet. A nutral location, just a small cafe downtown" She sat down in her chair. "This will be interesting, Mortimer." She smiled up at him. "Let's make a good first impression."


	4. Sketches Of Daily Life

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

Chapter Four

"Professor Charles Xavier, I presume." Xavier turned to see a strange woman appearing from the crowd to stand beside him. She was young looking, not more than 25 or so and dressed plainly but smartly in a black pants suit. Small glasses framed brown almond-shaped eyes and her straight black hair was pulled back in a bun. "I'm glad we finally have a chance to talk."

"You came alone?" Xavier asked, on his guard, but in the crowd it was hard for even him to have a totally clear picture of everyone who was around him.

"That was the arrangement. I don't know what kind of person you are used to dealing with, but I generally find it a good possibility to keep my word honest."

Xavier held his hands up. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to imply..."

She raised her hand to quiet him. "We had something to discuss, I believe?"

"Yes, yes we did."

Inside the cafe, the two sat at a corner table next to the large picture window that looked out onto the street. After the waitress had brought them their drinks, Xavier leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "Who are you?" he asked bluntly.

"Well," she leaned forward as well. "I'm blue, I have red hair and have a tendancy to borrow other people's shapes. I'm Mystique."

Xavier sighed. "You know this puts me in an akward position."

Mystique smiled. "If you don't believe me, read my mind. Go ahead, you've got permission."

"No, I don't think that will be necessary." Xavier shook his head. "You're willingness to submit to a mental scan is enough warrent the belief that you are who you claim to be. But how is it possible?"

Mystique simply shrugged her shoulders. "I was enjoying a nice quiet moment back home one minute, the next thing I know I've ended up in Mayberry where there happens to be a weird variant of everyone I know. But since I'm stuck here, I decided on at least doing what I could to improve things."

"And what exactly would that be?" Xavier asked. "I have to tell you that was my primary reason for agreeing to the request to talk to you. The children, Todd, Freddy, Pietro, Lance and Wanda. Mystique, the one I know, used those children horribly and after doing that she abandoned them to their own devices. What do you plan on doing with them? Why should I stand by and let you possibly use them again?"

She was quiet for a moment. It was obvious that Xavier was sincerly concerned for the Brotherhood. Typical. Xavier had always placed the well-being of younger mutants before anything else. Why else would the Xavier Institute have security systems that required a full blown tatical military strike force to break through? "Those children are broken in many ways, Xavier." Mystique started. "They've never really had a family that would stand behind them, support them and help them to come to terms with their abilities and use them to their fullest extent. For now, that is all I am doing. No fights with X-Men, no attacks on humans, nothing. Pietro and Wanda are not having any contact with Magneto, and all the children are enrolled in school and are under instructions to not use their powers at all while they are there."

"You would have me believe that you are doing this out of the pure goodness of your heart?" Xavier asked cynically.

Mystique smiled. "I'm doing this because they need someone to do this. They're good children who need someone to give them guidance. Besides, I enjoy the feeling of family. I've never really had it before. It's nice. Comradre, yes, family, no."

Xavier wasn't quite sure what to make of Mystique. Her musings on family were odd. He wondered if perhaps there was no Kurt in her dimention or if perhaps the Mystique of this world hadn't been entirely truthful on the subject. The memories Rogue had siphoned weren't the clearest or most complete. As for her other statements, from everything he could read she was being truthful. It was true that the Brotherhood had returned to school, how Xavier didn't know or was sure he wanted to know, but he had little doubt that Mystique was involved in some way. His own students reported that the Brotherhood were not using powers at school and were actually doing well in classes. Logan had taken a few short passes near the Brotherhood's home and had reported that it was indeed looking more like a proper living area and not a condemned building. In all respects, it looked as if this Mystique was genuinely concerned with the childrens' welfare.

Charles Francis Xavier was at a loss.

He was about to say something when a sudden breeze flited through the cafe and Pietro was suddenly standing at the side of the table. He looked quickly from Mystique to Xavier and then back to Mystique. "Youalmostdonehere?" he asked, his words running together as they tended to do when he was in a hurry about something. "We'reallgonnagoovertoIHOPwhenyou'refinished."

Mystique gave him an amused look. "I think I'm just about done here. Unless the professor has any last minute thoughts?"

"Just know that I'm not going to ignore the situation. If I feel that things are going down a dangerous path, I will take action."

"I would expect nothing less." Mystique replied as she got up and exited the cafe with Pietro at her side.

Xavier sat there for a few moments before realizing that Mysitque had just left him with the check.

***

The day was unusually warm for mid-September. The sun was still high in the sky as the X-Men headed towards the Bayville Municipal Park and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, much to Kurt Wagner's dismay. "I thought it was supposed to be fall now!" he complained as he hurried up to catch the others who had gotten ahead of him while he ducked into the public library to get a drink from the water foutain.

"Jeeze, Kurt, it's not that warm out." Kitty laughed as Kurt shot her a dirty look.

"Ja, but you're not the one who has a fur coat on 24-7." he muttered under his breath.

Evan turned around and walked backwards while bouncing a soccer ball on his head. "Quit comlaining and let's get going! The soccer field isn't gonna be open for long on a day like this."

"Yes sir, Mr. Summers." Rogue smirked. Evan shot her a look.

"Hey! I didn't have something crawl up my ass and die!"

Scott looked annoyed. "_Hello_, I'm right here."

Jean laughed and gave Scott's arm a gentle squeeze. "Don't let them get to you, Scott." she smiled. "They're just jealous of your natural leadership abilities."

Rogue hooked her arm around Kurt's elbow and did her best Jean impression. "Yes Scott, you show them how many dedicated hours in the Danger Room it took to get that stick jamed up your ass."

Scott stopped suddenly, his hands flying to his temples in a motion like what Professor Xavier or Jean would do when using their mental abilities. "Jean! I think I'm developing precognitive abilites! I... I see extra hours in the Danger Room running training simulations at five am!"

"Woah, is this, like, one of the signs of the apocalypse? Scott developing a sense of humor?" Kitty cut in as she and Evan rushed ahead towards the soccer field. They had almost reached the field when Kitty and Evan stopped short. "Bummer." Kitty sighed.

"What's wrong?" Jean asked as they caught up.

"The Brotherhood beat us to the field."

***

Mortimer had the rest of the Brotherhood standing in a loose huddle around him. Under one arm was a soccer ball that he would occasionally drop and then juggle it off both knees before catching it again. "Alright, Mystique wants you all to work on your teamwork. We're going to try a game of football, no powers allowed, just to kick back and see where we stand. Since we've got an odd number of you, I'll play goalie on one team."

"Why do we need a soccer ball to play football?" Todd asked.

"And why do we need a goalie?" Lance crossed his arms over his chest.

Mortimer sighed and ran his hand through his hair and up and under his hood. "Bloody hell... Join the rest of the world. 'Football' is 'soccer' to every country except you and maybe one or two others. _Anyway_, Wanda, Lance and me are one team; Freddy, Pietro and Todd are the other. Lance," Mortimer tossed the ball to Lance, "would you be so kind as to set the ball up for kick off?"

Lance nodded and headed towards the middle of the field. As he reached mid field, he smelled a familar odor of sulfer and turned to look upwind. He was hard to see, but sure enough, Lance caught sight of Kurt perched up in a tree nearby. The other X-Men appeared shortly after as Lance grinned to himself. "Hey, Mort! We've got company!" Turning back to look at the knoll that the X-Men were currently huddled on, Lance called over to them. "Know you're over there. Might as well quit lurking around, wouldn't want to get mistaken for us, would you?"

Pietro suddenly appeared beside Lance. "Looking for a field?" he sneered. "Sorry, got here first."

Under his hood, Mortimer lifted his gogles and smiled slightly. As the X-Men made their way to the field, Mortimer strolled over to Lance and Pietro and draped an arm over each. "Here, now lads, no need to be rude. This pitch is big enough for all of us." He looked over to the X-Men. "What would you all think to a no-powers game of footie?"

"Say what?" Kitty screwed her face up into a confused look.

"Soccer." Kurt explained. "'Footie' is short for 'football' which is what most Europeans call soccer."

"Hey now, I'm British, not European." Mortimer waved a finger in warning. "No need to start throwing insults around, after all."

"So how about it?" Lance asked, "Game of soccer? Think you can take us?"

Scott glared at Lance. "I don't _think_ we can, Alvers, I _know_ we can. This team is a well-oiled machine."

"Got plenty of confidence." Wanda commented as she and Todd joined the group. "Care to back it up?"

"Anytime!" Evan shot back. "The day the X-Men can't take on the Brotherhood is..."

"What happened just a few months ago." Wanda retorted. "As I seem to recall there was that little incident in the shopping mall..." She smiled an uncharicteristic, but by now familiar, Maximoff smile as she waved generally with her hand.

"Okay, that's it! You guys are going down!" Evan growled.

"Is that a 'yes' to that game of football?" Mortimer asked, a large smile creeping over his face.

Moments later, the two teams were out on the field and facing off against each other. On the Brotherhood's side Freddy was garding the goal and had no intention of letting any ball through. Pietro, Todd and Wanda were playing forwards, and Mortimer and Lance were the sweepers. On the X-Men side Rogue had the goale position with Kitty and Kurt in as sweepers. Evan, Scott and Jean were the team's forwards. Evan and Pietro were faced off head to head and when the countdown reached zero, Pietro shot forward and hooked the ball out from under Evan's foot. He kicked the ball over to Wanda and then headed down field towards the goal. Recieving the ball, Wanda started dribbling, quickly sidestepping around Jean as she plowed towards the goal. "Hey, for someone who was locked up in an institution for most of her life, Wanda's pretty good at soccer." Lance said with a tone of admiration in his voice.

"You know, if this whole mutant super-team thing doesn't work out, we could always go into professional football." Mortimer mused.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the field, Wanda kicked the ball back to Pietro. Before the speedster could get recover it, Kurt darted between them and punted the ball back down field towards Scott. Carefully stopping the ball with his chest, Scott pivoted and rushed both Lance and Mortimer. Lifting the ball slightly off the ground, Scott slammed the ball towards the goal. Catching it with one hand, Freddy easily hurled the ball back to the other side of the field, directly to the waiting Todd. Running backwards for a few steps, Todd caught the ball with the front of his foot and sent it flying towards Rogue. The ball slammed squarely into Rogue's chest as her arms folded over it in attempt to block it. Unfortunately with the force behind the ball, Rogue was sent flying back into the goal. When she sat up, she realized that she was half in-half out of the goal. However, the part of her upon which the ball was resting was just on the inside of the goal. "Aw, damn..." she groaned, slightly stunned.

"Woah! Nice shot, Todd!" Pietro came to a halt next to Todd and the two high-fived.

Scott made a face. "I thought this game was no-powers." He glared at Todd, who shrunk a little under the ruby-quartz gaze.

"Hey, I wasn't using any, yo!" Todd protested.

Rogue got up and rubbed her still-sore chest. "Coulda fooled me."

"Easy there mate." Mortimer quickly approached the teens, knowing that his presence would lessen the possibility of any sort of outburst. He carefully positioned himself halfway between Scott and Todd. "Not all mutants can 'turn themselves off,' so to speak. Enhanced strength isn't something you can just chose not to use." Mortimer's tone was soft, but dangerous. It was enough for Scott to back down.

Thankfully Jean chose that moment to lay a hand on Scott's shoulder. "He's right, Scott. Toad could have knocked Rogue clear through the net if he's honestly wanted to."

"Man, never thought I'd see the day, I'd be thankful to have a mind-snoop around." Todd whispered to Pietro.

"Well, if you've had enough of getting your butts handed to you..." Lance started.

"We got the hint." Even growled as the X-Men turned and left.

The Brotherhood watched in silence as the other team of mutants walked out of the park. Finally, Freddy broke the quiet. "Heh, that was pretty fun."

***

"The Flash?" Pietro's eyebrow arched as he was having a hard time believing what he was hearing. "You want me to dress in a red spandex costume and spend Halloween as the Flash?"

Lance shrugged. "Not like it's that far off the mark, Pietro."

"Why don't I just put on a giant sombrero and be Speedy Gonzales?" Pietro snorted, crossing his arms. Wanda and Lance gave each other evil grins as the image prossessed.

"You know, I think Freddy has that sombrero from when he visited South of the Border..." Lance mused.

Pietro shook his head vigorously. "Uh-uh, no way!"

"... and an old white shirt and pants wouldn't be hard to find."

"I'm pretty sure I've got a red scarf somewhere." Wanda drumed her fingers on the couch arm. "All we'd need are Micky Mouse ears."

"Hey, I got a pair of those." Todd quipped as he hopped into the room. "Whatcha need 'em for?"

"Pietro's gonna be Speedy Gonzalez for Halloween." Lance grinned.

"Am not!"

"Are now." Wanda laughed. Then she looked over at Todd, who had a pair of devil horns on his head. "Todd, what are you doing with those?"

Todd hopped onto the back of the sofa, still a tad clumsily due to the leg weights, and pointed to the horns. "These? Just playin' around with ideas for Halloween. Whadda think?"

"I donno, what are you supposed to be?" Lance asked.

Todd grinned. "Horny Toad!" The boys broke out laughing and Wanda just rolled her eyes.

"Aw, how cute." Mortimer ambled into the living room. "Getting ready for All-Hallows Eve? Well, you'll have to finish that up later. We're going to try some basic physical training today. Meet me outside in five."

"Basic training, eh?" Lance flipped the TV off and set the remote down. "This could be interesting."

When the teens exited the house, they saw Freddy and Mystique already out there and Mortimer finishing up the final touches on a makeshift punching bag. Mystique had shifted into a black unitard, while Mortimer was in loose pants and a white t-shirt. "Ready for some pratice?" Mystique asked as she watched Mortimer working up in the tree, enjoying the view.

"Guess so." Pietro replied. "What exactly is the plan?"

"You're going to be learning how to fight properly." Mortimer explained. "And we're not talking Marquis of Queensbury, either." He did an easy backflip off the tree branch he had tied the punching bag to. "Todd, Wanda, Pietro and Lance are going to be working with me on some kickboxing techniques."

"And Freddy is going to be working on fighting styles more suited to his particular build with me." Mystique finished. "And if you all do well in this session, we're going to have a fun little exercise on Halloween. Good luck you four, Freddy, follow me."

Mortimer turned to his group. "Alrighty mates, today we're gonna just work on the basics. Any of you done anything in the martial arts before." The Brotherhood just shook their heads. None of them had recieved anything in the way of combat training from either Mystique or Magneto. "Good, good. Then I hopefully won't have too many bad habits to break. Now, Wanda." He stood next to her and watched her hand. "Let's see a fist."

"Just a fist?" Wanda aksed. Mortimer nodded. Shrugging, Wanda made a fist of her hand and Mortimer looked at it. Then he wrapped his own hand around her fist and slowly started to squeeze. "OW!" Wanda exclaimed. Mortimer realeased her hand.

"Lesson one." Mortimer held his hand up for the teens to see. "Never put you thumb on the inside of a fist. If you thought that hurt, just think what it would have been like if you hand actually been hitting something."

"Couldn't make your point any other way?" Wanda hissed.

Mortimer turned to her with a wry smile on his face. "Sorry, luv, more effective with a visual demonstration. Now, let's all get in a line and we'll try running through some drills." Lining the four teens up in a row, Mortimer again showed them the proper way to form a fist. He then demonstrated a good, solid fighting stance. Once the teens looked comfortable, Mortimer started running them through their drills for the day. "Hope you were all rested before we started this." Mortimer grinned. "Because you're not going to be able to lift your legs above your waists after I'm done with you.

***

"I... can't... feel... my... legs..." Lance flopped back down on the sofa.

Pietro fell down beside him. "I don't want to hear about it." he groaned, "You didn't have to do it with extra weight."

Mortimer came into the house and looked at the boys. "It's going to hurt for a while, sure, but after a while I guarentee that you'll be able to handle that with no problem."

"I think Todd's dead." Freddy said as he dropped the smaller teen down in the armchair.

"Nah, the little blighter's just tuckered out."

"Well, I have to say I'm proud of all of you." Mystique said as she slipped into the room behind the others. "You all did well today. Considering that none of you have had anything in the way of training I am pleased with just how much you progressed today. Mortimer gave the four of you a glowing report and Freddy has shown me that many of the techniques that he used in his previous work will translate well." She cast a steady gaze over the tired young mutants. "This is what you have to look forward to in the future. Nothing that Mortimer and I are going to ask you to do is something that we wouldn't or haven't done ourselves. You're getting the same training that we did."

"So we at least get comiserations?" Wanda managed a tired smile.

"That and you all get to go get cleaned up." Mystique instructed. "We're all going out as soon as you're all presentable."

***

"Bayville Mall." Mystique looked around the food court. "Symbol of capitolism at its best." She was in a simple human-colored variation of her normal form as she led Wanda through the mall. "And no better place to get you a little diversity in that wardrobe of yours." She looked back at Wanda, who was actually looking a little uncomfortable. "Relax a little, Wanda. You know it is normal for teenage girls to go to the mall and shop." Mystique said softly.

Wanda huffed a little. "I've never been one for doing what's normal."

Mystique gave her a small hug and Wanda stiffened a little before letting herself relax a little. "I know what that's like. After my X-gene went active I couldn't go to school. It took me too long to figure out how to control my ability for me to go back." She looked down at the younger woman. "But come on. You're not a teenager for long. Might as well enjoy the time you have."

And with that, she dragged Wanda into one store that was a little... pinker than the others.

The blood drained from Wanda's face as she realized the store that she was being pulled into.

"Holy shit... Myst... Raven! I'm not going in there!"

Mystique shot Wanda a wicked grin over her shoulder. "Never been in a lingere store before?" she asked, doing her best to appear innocent.

"You know I haven't!"

"First time for everything." Mystique dragged Wanda the rest of the way in. "Besides, this is a very good way to begin understanding the fundamental truth that men are easy to manipulate given the correct stimulis."

Wanda scowled. "I don't like the way this converstation is heading..."

"Oh, not every man." Mystique retorted. "Just those special few that you eventually trust in that way."

"Trust a man? Not likely." Wanda snorted. "In case you've forgotten, I haven't had the best of luck when it comes to the guys that I get shuffled in with."

Mystique looked away from a rack of nighties and gave Wanda a curious look. "You think not? I think you've done fairly well." Wanda looked skeptical. "You have a brother who does care a great deal about you, dispite some rather rough times. I think his overwhelming desire to send that Mathews boy to meet his maker is a good indication of that. Todd is obviously crazy about you dispite being discuraged time and time again." Mystique bit her lower lip slightly in thought. "Now if I could get Mortimer in that sort of frame of mind... Anyway, the rest of the Brotherhood sees you as a member of the team and I have no doubt would do just about anything for you."

"If I just go ahead and agree with you do you promise not to mention anything about Toads in... _that way_ again?"

Laughing, Mystique turned back to the clothes rack. "Your brain is really having a hard time processing the fact that there is a Toad out there who does something for you, aren't you?"

"No!"

"You're blushing, you know."

"Okay, okay... I like guys that are ripped. There I said it, can we drop it now?"

"You should have seen Mortimer when he first joined up with us." Mystique said slowly as she dragged Wanda from the nighties to the costumes. "Scrawny little thing. Once Magneto started to train him he got a lot better very fast. He's actually a quite good sparring partner."

"Sparring... We can stick to sparring." Wanda muttered. "Nice and nutral."

"Then he takes his shirt off to keep from overheating and..."

"Fuck you."

Mystique grinned. "You do realize of course that Todd can't be anywhere near finished growing. He's only, what, 17?"

"Yeah, I think so, but he's about ready to have a birthday I think."

"Oh yeah, the boy defenitely has at least one more growth spurt waiting for him."

Wanda shot Mystique a sideways glance. "Are you actually trying to play matchmaker, or something? 'Cause if you are, I'm telling you now that it just ain't happening." Mystique just smiled that 'never-say-never-you-silly-young-thing' smile.

"Oy, are you two done in there?" Wanda and Mystique looked out of the store to see Mortimer and the boys standing just outside the store. Each of the boys were doing their best to avoid actually _looking_ at the store and Mortimer had his face hidden in the inky depths of his sweatshirt's hood. "We've been around this place twice already."

"Why don't you come on in and join us then?" Mystique asked casually, turning back to the clothes racks.

Wanda would have bet even money that Mortimer's face had turned bright red under his hood by the way he practically jumped. "No bloody way! Birds think that a bloke's a bloody pervert if he goes into one of those stores."

Mystique smiled a slightly sadistic smile that Wanda knew the boys couldn't see. "Well then how am I supposed to get an honest opinion on these? Having Wanda here is all fine and good, but a lady needs a man's opinion." Mortimer just crossed his arms and was probably glaring from under his hood.

"Hey, Pietro," Lance shoved the speedster in the direction of the store, "you're our resident clothes horse!"

"Ohnonononononononono! Wanda's my _sister_!" Pietro backpeddled.

"Are you deliberately _trying_ to make their heads explode?" Wanda asked Mystique, who was doing her best to keep from breaking out in laughter. "Because if you are, I think you might be about to succeed."

"Oh alright." Mystique sighed melodramatically as she spun around on her heel and walked out of the store with Wanda close behind. She gave Mortimer a pat on the head as she passed by him and Wanda couldn't suppress a giggle as Mortimer drew himself further into himself.

"Not funny." he muttered as he turned to follow the two women and the other teens fell into step behind him. "Making a bloke feel like a pervert like that..."

"Well, you did do some peeping in that one woman's window..."

"Sabertooth cut my support line, and you know it!" Mortimer growled as Mystique laughed.

***

"Okay, this is starting to drive me fucking insane!"

"Evan! Language!" Ororo Munro tossed a stern look at her nephew.

Evan winced at the chastising. "Sorry, Aunt 'Ro. But come on! The Brotherhood's gotta be up to something. They've been quiet for months now."

"And what's to prevent them from continuing?" Ororo asked. "It is all that difficult to believe that they might actually have decided to do something with their time besides stirr up trouble?"

"Well, this is the Brotherhood we're talking about." Kitty looked up from her newest teen magazine. "It's not like they've ever really needed a reason."

"Rogue used to be with the Brotherhood." Ororo pointed out, lowering her book to her lap. "She seems to have made a good transition."

"The matter of the Brotherhood," Xavier finally inturupted, "is not an easy one. There are several factors that are playing into the equation right now and I am still struggling to understand them all."

***

The night of October 31st was cool and their was a thick layer of fog rolling over the city of Bayville. The breath of young costumed children could be seen in the air, and there was the promise of frost in the morning.

Climbing down the banister of the front stairs in the Brotherhood's house, Todd heard a noise coming from the living room. Hopping the rest of the way to the first floor, the younger Toad poked his head in and saw a flury of activity. "We gonna go trick or treatin'?" Todd asked as he spied Mortimer with a large handfull of sacks. Mortimer looked up at his younger dimentional counterpart and grinned.

"Well, half-right. We're going to do some tricking, and if you do well I suppose we can see what we do about a treat after."

Todd cocked his head slighly. "Trickin? I think I like this idea, yo!"

Mystique was looking over a list, her eyes darting occasionally over to the pile that Mortimer was building up. "Let's see... Do we have everything?"

Checking the bags again, Mortimer nodded. "I think so, luv."

"Shaving cream?"

"Check."

"Plastic forks?"

"Check."

"Toilet paper?"

"Two-ply, check."

"Good! Then I think we're all ready to go. Todd, be a dear and bring the others down, will you?"

Todd nodded and hopped back upstairs. He knocked on Lance's door and after a moment the older teen opened it. He had a pencil behind his ear, evidently in the middle of homework. "Yeah?" He sounded a little tired, and a little fustrated. Must have been math.

"Mystique wanted me to get everyone down into the den." Todd explained.

Lance sighed and stretched. "'Could use the break. Be down in a sec."

The door to Pietro's room was open, and Todd saw that he and Wanda were doing... something. Knocking on the door frame, Todd waited for the twins to look over. "Meetin' downstairs, yo."

"About what?" Pietro asked. Todd shrugged and quickly hopped down the hall to Freddy's room.

Todd rapped on Freddy's door and heard a "Come in!" from inside. Peeking inside Todd saw Freddy reading something. "Hey, whacha reading, yo?"

"Homework reading." Freddy replied. Todd hopped on his shoulder and looked at the book.

"Is that a cook book?" Todd asked.

Freddy nodded. "Yup. The class is going to make lunch the last day of class before Thanksgiving, so we all have to make something. I'm just trying to figure out what."

"Thanksgivin'..." Todd mused. "Hey, you think we'll actually have one this year, Freddy?"

"Maybe." Freddy replied, noting the look of hope in Todd's face. He wondered if the smaller teen had ever had a real Thanksgiving. Hell, Freddy only remembered a couple. They had always been tense afairs, his mom and dad trying to hold together a marriage that was never really ment to be for the sake of their only son. Of course, Mystique and Mortimer had been the family that all of the Brotherhood had been missing, the cool aunt and uncle who would let you get away with stuff that your parents would never allow, but at the same time making sure you didn't get into any really _deep_ shit. Maybe the holiday season this year wouldn't suck.

"Oh, hey, by the way meeting downstairs." Todd quipped as he hopped off Freddy and back out into the hall.

Down in the living room, the Brotherhood found Mortimer pulling on the same dark clothing that he had worn when he and Mystique had first arrived at the boarding house and Mystique had morphed into a rather Dianna Rigg Emma Peel-like black bodysuit. The bags that Todd had seen earlier were placed in the middle of the room. "So what's up, Mystique?" Pietro asked eying the bags. Wanda came in behind him, wiping something off her face with a towl. Lance arched a eyebrow.

"Pietro was helping me with a few Halloween makeup ideas." she explained.

"If you're all ready?" Mystique asked, getting Wanda and Lance's attention again. "In the grand tradition of Halloween, Mortimer and I decided that Bayville needed some tricking. In those bags you will find all the usual tools of the tricking trade. With them, we're going to have a little practice mission."

"A practice mission?" Lance asked. "What do tricks and missions have to do with each other?"

"Quite a lot," Mystique smiled, "if you plan on tricking at the Xavier Institute."

"You're serious?" Pietro squeaked. "Look, we took them at soccer, but getting onto the grounds? They've got a killer defence system,"

"Bloody hell, Pietro." Mortimer snorted. "We're just gonna TP the place, not level it. Well, TP and a few other things..."

"This will be an excersise in infiltration and covert operations." Mystique explained. "And by keeping everything nice and innocent, there is a very low chance that they'll engage in any sort of serious retaliation."

Mortimer picked up the bags. "Now at the risk of using a horrible pun, let's hop to it. We get through this without being caught and we go to IHOP afterwords."

The ride to the Xavier Institute was an unusually quiet one. As Lance came to a stop a good quarter-mile away from the Institute, the two Toads hopped out of the Jeep and Mortimer looked at the darkened building through a pair of bonoculars. Looking down at his watch, he saw the time reading midnight. The next day wasn't a school day, but all the Institute's residents seemed to have turned in for the night. A light breeze bushed past the two mutants and they suddenly found Pietro crouching next to them.

"Lights are out all round."

Freddy, Wanda, Mystique and Lance joined them. "Pietro, you're in charge of the forking." Mystique handed him one bag and directed him to the vast front lawn of the institute. "Freddy, Todd, the two of you are the TP team. Wanda, Lance, you get the shaving cream and the driveway. Try to think of something humorous."

***

"The Brotherhood has been quiet for _months_ and when they finally do make a move they fork the yard, TP the mansion and write 'You've been tricked - B.O.M.' on the front drive with shaving cream! What is with those guys?" Scott groaned as he flopped down on the sofa. The X-Men had spent most of November first cleaning up the mess that they discovered in the cold morning light.

Evan was growling as he carried in a trash bag with the forks that had been frozen into the lawn by the night's frost. "Oh man, just wait until school on Monday..."

"Why? Do you plan on doing something?" Professor Xavier's voice came from the door to the living room.

"Aw come on, Professor." Rogue replied, "We're just supposed to let this slide?"

Xavier smiled and shook his head. "Yes, Rogue. After all, they could have done what they did last year and leveled a building somewhere. I think we should be greateful that their trick was of the harmless variety."

"Charles," Ororo lowered the morning paper wearing a wry smile on her face, "just who left that bucket of candy corn on the front step for you this morning?"

Xavier gave Ororo a smile. "Ororo, I have no idea what you're talking about." Then he turned and left the room

He had a peace offering of candy corn to take care of, after all. 


	5. A Brotherhood Thanksgiving

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

**Author's Notes** - Thanks for all the reviews guys! I have to say that this is probably the best ammount of feedback I've ever gotten. I hate to say that updates aren't going to be four chapters at a time as I had just uploaded four previously written chapters. But I'll try to be as quick as possible. I have a lot of plans for this fic and hope it lives up to your expectations.

Just a few things: Forking (as in what the Brotherhood did on Halloween) is when you take plastic forks and stick them in someone's lawn before a frost. They are frozen into the ground and have a nasty tendency to break when people try to pull them out. Wicked fun! And to the annonymous poster who said that I misspelled 'football,' amigo, I lived in England for two years and know for a fact that it is spelled 'football' and not 'futball.'

Chapter Five

"SNOW NINJAS!"

Jean and Rogue didn't even have time to duck behind a telekinetic shield before they were beseiged by a flury of snowballs. The two girls shook the snow out of their hair and looked around for the people responsible. Two figures in white jumped off into the distance, both laughing evily.

***

"I suppose I was right to be worried when you bought winter camouflage for the two of you?" Mystique asked as she sat on the kitchen counter sipping from a cup of coffee. Mortimer and Todd quickly were shedding the white garments that were soaking wet from the snow outside, hanging them up on a rack that had been set up for drying. "Didn't do any perminant damage, did you?"

"Now that depends on what your definition of 'perminant damage' is, luv." Mortimer grinned.

Todd was busy sniffing the air. "Hey, it smells good in here, yo!"

"It should." Mystique took a sip of her coffee. "Freddy's been hard at work all day. Dinner's really going to be something tonight."

***

Pietro looked at the dining room table with an appraising eye. This was really the first time that the room would actually be used for it's indended purpose. Since it was used mainly as a storage room when the Brotherhood first got together, there had been a lot of dust and grime built up and Pietro started to regret offering to get it ready for Thanksgiving dinner. The speedster sighed, at least it wouldn't take as long as if the other memebers of the Brotherhood were doing it. Getting the boxes that had been left in the room to another, still unused part of the boarding house was easy. The boxes were light and with most of the others in the kitchen there wasn't anyone to slow him down as he made the numerous trips up and downs stairs at top speed. After about fifteen minutes, he was left with a rather spacious room that held a good sized table and more than enough chairs for the Brotherhood.

Now, about all that dust.

Pietro considered just seeing if he could work up enough air turbulance to just get the dust moving, but when he saw that just walking on the hardwood floors left footprints, he decided that perhaps the 'normal' way of cleaning might be the better one. Slower, more agrivating, but probably better in the long run.

Besides, maybe it would do him some good to do things at a 'normal' speed for a change. Wanda seemed to think that it would. _When you do things at super-speed you don't think about them, Pietro. That's probably why you act like such a jerk sometimes. Take some time to slow down._

He hated slowing down.

It did cause him to think more.

He never thought particuarly pleasent thoughts when he did.

The broom's bristles scratched lightly on the floor, sounding rediculously loud to his mind.

The cell phone that his father had given him was still up in his room in it's normal spot on his dresser. For the past few months he had been feeding Magneto a steady stream of misinformation supplied by Mystique. For the most part it was just saying that the Brotherhood still wasn't ready for any sort of consideration by Magneto. That Wanda was still traveling around searching for something and that the X-Men were keeping so much pressure on them that they hadn't been able to do anything. Pietro didn't mind it actually. The separation from his father had been a good thing. Over the past months Pietro's relationship with Wanda had improved by leaps and bounds. True, they still fought a lot and one glare from her was enough to make him flinch, but they had actually been able to begin to talk. Wanda finally was able to accept that Pietro had never agreed with Magneto's decision to place her in the mental institution, and Pietro had done his best to make amends for siding with Magneto in the whole Sentinel incident.

Dustpan, he'd forgotten it upstairs.

Gone.

Back.

Damn, there was a lot of dust. He hadn't even gotten through half the room. Apparently Mystique hadn't liked housecleaning either. The rest of the house wasn't as dirty and it had been home to five, unsupervised mutant teenagers. Six if you included the short stay of Tabitha 'Boom Boom' Smith. Hell, she'd probably been responsible for most of the damage in the bording house's west wing.

Back to sweeping.

Damn. His hair was going to be grey by the time he was finished.

Misinformation.

It was the only way he knew, outside of just confronting Magneto - and that was just suicidal, even for a blood relative - to make amends to the Brotherhood.

"_ACHOOOO!_"

Stupid dust.

Magneto.

Father.

Self-proclaimed savior of mutant kind.

And he was betraying him.

Why?

Anger. Pietro was angry. He wasn't supposed to have been an errend boy. That's what the Acolytes had relegated him to. Pyro, Colossus, Sabertooth, even Mastermind had more say in the goings on of the Acolytes. Pietro had just been the barely tolerated one, let in on things just because he was Magneto's son. Apparently super-speed wasn't useful enough for them.

And he had even saved Magneto's life.

Ungrateful jerk.

Magneto.

No longer Father.

Just Magneto.

It would be easier that way.

Mystique was right anyway. Magneto was out for power, not mutant rights. True, things still sounded a little... Xavier-ish, but they made more sense when he thought about them.

What's that? Oh, the arm weights. Barely realize they're there now. Might want to mention that to Mortimer.

He'll put heavier ones on.

That's a _good_ thing, idiot. Means you're getting stronger.

Who you calling an idiot?

The idiot who forgot the obvious.

Why I outta...

Crap... Arguing with myself.

Lots of dust. Almost done.

Still have a lot to do to make things up to the Brotherhood. No excuse for acting like a jerk.

*sigh*

He needed to talk to Wanda. She was good for helping to get thoughts straight.

The room was clean. All that was left was to set the table.

***

Lance set the last bag into the back of his Jeep and then swung himself into the driver's seat. Freddy had sent him out for some last minute shopping for Thanksgiving dinner. Just a few things, most of them were just little things that were more or less finishing touches. Lance mused over the list that he had shoved into his pocket. He smiled when he remembered one of the items. A Thanksgiving-themed cookie cutter. It really didn't matter exactly of what, but Freddy had insisted that it had to be Thanksgiving-themed. Freddy had told Lance that he was going to use leftover crust dough and the cookie cutter to decorate the center of the pumpkin pie. After searching the supermarket, Lance had found a pumkin and a turkey cookie cutter. He decided to go with the turkey.

The snow had come just in time for a white Thanksgiving. Lance stood against his jeep as he waited for the windshield to defrost. He supposed he could have sat inside. It probably would have been warmer. Mortimer had helped him rig a hard top that kept the wind from getting to him during the long drives in the cold, but all the same, Lance enjoyed standing outside and watching the people come and go from the supermarket. Most of them were rushing, Lance bet they were like he was. Just running in for last minute things that were needed for the yearly dinner to end all dinners.

Out of the corner of his eye, Lance spotted a familiar red convertable. The soft top was pulled up, but it was still obviously Scott Summers' car. Lance lazily watched his breath rise in a white cloud as Kitty Pryde and Scott piled out of the car and started towards the supermarket. _Would have thought Kitty was the type to go home for Thanksgiving_. Lance mused idly. The two X-Men were just about to enter the store when Kitty spotted him. She tugged on Scott's sleeve and the older teen cast a frown in Lance's direction. Abruptly changing directions, Scott headed in Lance's direction.

"What do you know about 'snow ninjas?'"

Lance gave Scott an unbelieving look. "Snow ninjas? Summers, you've been watching too many bad '80's movies." Scott snorted, but turned and walked into the store. Lance just laughed and shook his head. "What you still doing here, Kitty Kat?" he asked when he saw that Kitty was still standing in front of him with a slightly sad look on her face.

"You could still come over to our side, you know." Kitty said, avoiding Lance's eyes.

Lance stiffened. "I thought we'd been over that." he said shortly. "I belong with the Brotherhood, Kitty. I'm not X-Men material."

"But I know you can be!" Kitty grabbed Lance's arm, "I know you could."

"Kitty!" Lance jerked his arm away, "Stop it! Look, I know we had something for a while. I know that at one time I might have jumped at the chance to be an X-Man, but that is all in the past. I've seen a lot more of the world than you have Kitty, and I know what it's really like." Lance's eyes narrowed and Kitty shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "The world isn't milk and cookies, Kitty. There are a whole lot of people out there who just don't give a damn about a kid on the street and a world that hates us because we were born. _That's_ why I stick with the Brotherhood, Kitty. We all know what the world is like and we watch out for each other."

"Like Pietro?" Kitty laughed, "He really looked out for you guys."

Lance tightened his grip on Kitty's arm. "Pietro's got a lot of shit in his life that you'd never understand. That's what makes him one of the Brotherhood."

"We've all had hard lives..."

"Bullshit." Lance countered, "You don't know the first thing about a hard life. Parents that looked after you, never going hungry or wondering if you were ever going to have a place to sleep - when you've lived like that, then talk to me. You want to know why Tabitha and Rogue never made it in the Brotherhood? Because they never really knew what it was like to be totally alone. Even with all her bitching, Tabby was never really alone, and Rogue's the same way." Lance looked like he was going to keep going, but the sudden appearance of Scott at the door of the supermarket caused him to stop abruptly. He let go of Kitty's arm and jumped into his Jeep. "Get inside, Kitty. Boy Scout is waiting for you."

Lance waited until he was sure Kitty wasn't near his Jeep. She might be able to phase, but all the same the apparance that he would even consider backing over her was callous, even for him.

_Blaze of Glory_ played on the radio as Lance headed back to the bording house. His face was set in the overly-familiar 'fuck-the-world' expression as he pulled into the front drive. He _had_ been in a good mood. He hissed a little as the Jeep skidded a bit as it hit an ice patch, but quickly pulled the Jeep out of a skid and to a stop.

"Sucessful?" Lance looked up and saw Mystique standing on the porch, a mug in hand.

"Yeah." Lance grumbled.

Mystique cocked her head slightly. "Something happen?" she asked as she walked over to the Jeep, grabbing one of the bags in her free arm.

"Ran into Summers and Kitty at the store." Lance grumbled. Mystique nodded. She had been told by several of the Brotherhood about the short and fairly turbulant relationship that Lance had been in with the X-Man.

"Well, don't let that get you in a bad mood today." Mystique smiled at him. "Freddy's almost done in the kitchen and everything's coming together."

Lance sighed and followed the shape-shifter into the kitchen. The scents of Thanksgiving hit him as soon as he walked through the door. The counters were covered with the signs of Freddy's days work. Taking in a deep breath, Lance let the smells fill his lungs and his shoulders loosened a bit as he placed the bags on the counter next to the ones Mystique had brought in. Leaving the kitchen, Lance poked his head into the dining room and was surprised at how clean it actually was. He knew that Pietro had volunteered to take care of it, but it had been so filthy when he had left for the store that he had been positive that even the speedster would have had a longer task ahead of him. A gust of wind blew past him and suddenly Pietro was a dirvish of activity setting the places at the table and arranging a little paper turkey centerpiece that Wanda had spent a good deal of the morning working on.

Shaking his head, Lance headed towards the living room. A few months ago he would have never been able to picture this sort of life for anyone in the Brotherhood. They had honestly been a rag-tag bunch of second-tier Acolyte wanna-bees who had been actually turned into something that was eerily reminicant of a family unit.

_Fuck,_ Lance grinned and dropped down onto the sofa and flipped on the TV to watch the rest of the Macy's Thanksgiving parade, _if it weren't for the fact that we're still planning to make life hell for just about everyone, I'd be worried we were turning into the X-Men with all this warm fuzziness._

***

There were times that Wanda hated having the room right above the kitchen. Before all the changes around the bording house, the smell of spoiled food had drifted up through the floorboards on hot days. But on this particualar day, Wanda snuggled down into her pillows and enjoyed the smells from the dinner that she would be sharing in the next few hours.

This was going to be Wanda's first Thanksgiving since she'd left the institution. As she pulled her feet up beneath her to sit cross-legged and leaned back against her headboard. Wanda looked across her bed at the empty scrapbook and plethora of pictures and momentos. There were a lot of pictures, most having been taking in the last few months from the window of her bedroom. She hadn't wanted the boys or Mystique to know what she was doing; scrapbooking probably would have struck them all as a little... well, odd as Wanda's hobby of choice. But the one-time use cameras weren't that expensive, and Wanda liked the idea of having something tangible about the only real family she'd ever felt like she'd belonged to.

There was the brief sound of feet falling on stairs as Pietro made a run upstairs for something. Wanda hoped that he was taking her advice and was taking some time to actually slow down today. She had been pleasently surprised to find that when Pietro actually made an effort, he was actually somewhat nice to be around. _Just goes to show what you can find out about your siblings when you're not constantly plotting against each other_. Wanda mused idly.

Wanda picked up one of the pictures, one that had been taken during one of Todd and Pietro's training sessions with Mortimer. Pietro was more or less a blur in the picture, as usual, and Todd was rather humorously positioned in mid-air as he jumped to avoid being tagged by the speedster. Wanda couldn't help but smile a little bit. No matter how much she hated to admit it, Todd was good for cheering-up if nothing else. True, he was a persistant little annoyance sometimes, but still he was a nice change to the usual angst that sometimes settled over the residents of the boarding house. Setting the picture back amoung its brothers, Wanda picked up the scrapbook and opened it to it's first blank page.

Frowning, Wanda flipped the colored sheets of paper that she had picked up from the scrapbook store. Frankly she had been amazed that there was an entire store at the mall dedicated to scrapbooking, but there was and the ladies there had given her some good advice about making her book.

_God, the others are never going to let me live this down if they ever actually find out about this._

There was a pile of comics and newspapers by the side of her bed. It was a little odd, but she felt like the costumed super-chracters would somehow fit well in the scrapbook dedicated to a house of super-powered teenagers.

Maybe she should have just stuck with her first idea of a diary.

And old newspaper caught her eye. The front page had a huge Sentinel surrounded by almost unrecognizable figures that Wanda knew were the X-Men and the Brotherhood. Wanda wasn't exactly sure why she had kept that particular paper; it certainly wasn't the best part of her life. She had been angry and just about everything, was lashing out at just about everyone and not giving a fuck about it.

Wanda frowned a little. She hoped she was remembering everything. Shortly after Mystique and Mortimer had arrived Pietro had come clean about what Magneto had Mastermind do to her memories. After Hex Bolting him into the wall, and Todd for good measure - he'd known what had happened - she'd just cried. She rembered having been surprised when Pietro had actually not run away and come back and given her the first brotherly hug she'd ever remembered getting from him. He had been shaking like a chiuaua to be sure, but he had come back. Wanda had surprised herself even more by not Hex Bolting him across the room again. It was amazing how much she had actually felt like she had _needed_ it from him.

Then there was Magneto. After hearing what he had done to her, Wanda had decided that there was no way in hell that she was ever going to call that man 'father' again. She knew that the break from Magneto had been hard on Pietro, but he actually seemed to be becoming a better person these days.

After a few more minutes Wanda shoved the scrapbooking materials into a box and slid it under her bed. The smells from downstairs were getting to be just too good to ignore now. Who would have thought that Freddy would actually wind up being as good at cooking food as he was at eating it?

_Actually, ol' Freddy seems to have cut back on the snacks lately._ Wanda mused as she closed the door to her room and jogged down the stairs. It wasn't so much that Freddy had looked like he was loosing weight... His mutation probably made that impossible, but it looked like all that extra 'blob-ness' was actally starting to work its way into more muscle than fat. _Guess it's true that when you spend all your time in the kitchen it just puts you off food. He's gonna have to watch it or else we'll have to come up with a new nick-name for him._ Wanda almost grinned as she turned into the kitchen and inhaled the heavenly smells of Thanksgiving.

***

The snow crunched lightly under Todd's feet as he bounded around the backyard. It might be Thanksgiving, but Mortimer still wanted him to run through his training routine. It wasn't as bad as Todd had thought it was going to be. He was alone in the backyard for a change, so he goofed off a little as he ran through his drills. A little backflip here and another one there helped to break up the routine a little. The weights on his arms and legs weren't really an issue for Todd anymore; something which had actually surprised the young mutant when he had realized it earlier in the day. He knew Mortimer had another set set up for him and probably the same for Pietro. After all, if he had been doing this well with his extra forty pounds, then Pietro couldn't possibly be having that much trouble with his.

Looking up at the second floor of the bording house, Todd saw Wanda's shadow against the shade. For a moment Todd wondered what she might be doing up there. She'd finished the decorations for the table before he and Mortimer had gotten back from their little... ninja mission and had shut herself in her room since then. Hopping on the now rusted washing machine, Todd paused a moment and sighed.

It wasn't much of a secret that Todd had harbored a crush on Wanda since the day the old Mystique had brought her into the Brotherhood. Well, at least since Todd realized that Wanda was much more likely to send Pietro into a wall with Hex Bolt than him. Todd let out a soft sigh and rested his chin on his palm. Bad, beautiful and so fucking untouchable. A scowl crossed Todd's face. Wanda was somewhat close to Mystique, but that probably had something more to do with the fact that they were the only two females in the bording house. She was getting close with Pietro, but then again, they were siblings and siblings were supposed to be close like that, weren't they? Todd supposed so. After all, Nightcrawler and Rogue were pretty close and they weren't even blood relatives.

Then there was Mathews...

Well, at least she was even more untouchable for him than she was for Todd. That thought brought him some small sense of satisfaction, at least.

That and the fact that he and Pietro had been planning various ways of shaking down the quarterback without getting themselves kicked out of school. Pietro had been quick to point out that they could get away with just about anything as long as it wasn't on school grounds and it didn't result in any outright threats or harm to Duncan. Just enough to... get the point across.

Ooooooh boy, but was that ever tempting.

And the fact that Pietro was more than willing to include Todd in the plan just made it that much more delicious.

A sudden shiver down his spine jolted Todd back into hyperkenetic activity. He wasn't really amphibious... he didn't think so anyway... but he sure could get pretty damn cold in a hurry. Probably had something to do with lack of body hair and body fat. After a quick moment of thought, Todd decided to head into the kitchen. At the moment that was the warmest room in the house, outside of the basement where the boiler was. He sprang into the kitchen just as Wanda slid in. Todd grinned.

"Hey, Sweety!"

_*ZAPP!*_

A split second later and Todd found himself upside down against the door to the outside. He looked up to see Freddy standing over him with a exasperated look on his face. Grabbind Todd's belt, he hoisted his smaller friend up and set him on the counter as Wanda slipped back out of the room, a stolen cookie in her hand.

"You still after her, Todd?" Freddy asked.

"Heh... Sure!"

Freddy just shook his head. "Man, you're a glutton for punishment or something."

Todd used his tongue quickly to snag a cookie off the same plate that Wanda's had been on. "Yeah, well, I figure I'm makin' progress. She hasn't knocked me down the stairs in over two months." Todd pointed out thoughtfully.

"Not that having a ton of homework and daily drills would have had anything to do with that?"

"Totally unrelated, yo!"

Freddy just rolled his eyes again in a 'whatever-you-say' kinda way. Todd shot him another grin and hopped out into the living room.

***

Freddy had been in the kitchen for the better part of the day. While he would normally take any opportunity to sleep in, today was different. Thanksgiving - and this was going to be the best Thanksgiving that any of them would have ever had. Well, at least for Lance, Todd and himself. Wanda and Pietro never really talked about their past and the same went for Mystique and Mort.

Mystique had fully embraced the idea of a big Thanksgiving for the Brotherhood. Mystique actually seemed to like anything that would promote a sense of family. She had spent a good couple of hours the previous day at the store getting everything that they would need. Of course, Lance had needed to go get a few things that they had forgotten, but most everything had been ready. And everyone was more than happy to let Freddy take care of the meal. For some reason it had surprised them all when they learned that he had a flair for the culinary arts. Apparently the idea that Freddy could cook as well as eat hadn't ever crossed their minds.

_'Course I don't see what's so weird about it,_ Freddy thought to himself, When you rely on yourself for just about everything, you have to be able to take care of yourself.

Of course Freddy supposed that the fact that he had worked in a traveling show before coming to Bayville had something to do with that. While it was true that the show tended to leave him a little tired afterwords, he had actually kept his fast food consumption to a minimum. Stuff like that used up his small paycheck from the show far too quickly. In the long run it was much easier and cheaper to make his own meals.

The others had been coming into check up on the dinner's progress all day. Todd and Mystique had been the most frequent visitors. Mystique liked to make sure things were always going to plans, Todd was just eager to see his first full-fledged Thanksgiving dinner come together. Todd had never outright mentioned it to anyone, but Freddy got the idea that this was probably going to be a first for the younger teen.

Of course, Todd could just be trying to sneak food ahead of dinner time.

When he thought about it, the whole situation seemed a little surreal to Freddy. His life was nearly normal, really for the first time in his life. There hadn't been any fights with the X-Men and Gambit hadn't been snooping around for Magneto, and Princpal Kelly had even been off the Brotherhood's collective back for the first time since they'd been exposed as mutants. That probably had something to do with Mystique. She usually seemed to take care of that sort of thing for them. On the whole, it was hard to resist the urge to brace for an inevitable catastrophy to ruin the day. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Freddy wondered if this was what being an X-Man was like. Well, being an X-Man but minus all the goody-two-shoes crap.

Freddy checked the turkey one more time before deciding that it was finally done. Taking it out of the oven, he carefully arranged it on the serving plate and dressed it. When he was finally satisfied with the final product, Freddy left the kitchen to check out Pietro's progress in the dining room. To his slight surprise, the whole job wasn't finished. It looked like Pietro had actually decided to do something at normal speed. Somewhat surprising, but Freddy shrugged it off. Probably Wanda's idea. "Hey, Pietro," Freddy made his presence known to the other teen, "you about ready? I can serve as soon as the table's set."

Pietro's face split into a grin. "I think I can hurry up for that! Give me a minute and it's all yours, big guy." Freddy barely had time to step out of the doorway before he felt the stiff breeze that showed that Pietro was back moving at full speed to finish up the table. He didn't stick around to see the end results of Pietro's work, after all, he'd be back in a few minutes with the food.

"Hey, Freddy! Hey, Freddy!" Todd hopped up behind him and jumped up on the larger mutant's shoulder. "Just saw Pietro zippin' around. Does that mean dinner's almost ready?"

"Yeah, just got to get the food on the table."

"Alright! I'm gonna eat until I throw up!"

***

"Is anyone at this table particuarly religious?" Mystique asked from her position at the head of the table. When she was greated with a host of blank stares, she smiled a 'thought-so' smile. "In that case, we'll forgo any sort of grace before dinner. But before ravishing this wonderful meal, let's all give Freddy a round of applause for all his hard work and for everyone else for helping."

A chorus of cheers and whoots went up around the table.

"But I'm afraid I wouldn't be a very good den mother if I didn't insist that we each say something profound or sappy before we dig in." Mystique waved her hand in a careless gesture. "Anyone want to volunteer to start?"

"Sure, I'm just glad to be out of that friggin' nut house." Wanda said, crossing her arms over her chest. "I am not.. repeat _not_ going to set foot in another mental facility as long as I live."

"Short, sweet, too the point." Mystique smiled. "Who's next?"

"Having a real home for the past year's been one of the best things I've ever had happen to me." Freddy said. "I haven't actually had a single place to call home for real since I was about eleven."

"Man, I'm thankful for the food, yo!" Todd's face was as bright as a Christmas tree. "I ain't ever seen a spread like this! And I mean ever!" 

"Wonderfully insightful, Todd." Wanda gave him a sarcastic smile.

"Now, now," Mortimer gave a mock-stern warning from his end of the table, "you can't expect the lad to come up with something like that right now. After all, we're celebrating a day when the whole bloody point seems to gorge yourself on a ruddy bird. God bless America!"

"I'm just happy to be at a Thanksgiving meal with something that is actually like a family." Lance cut in. "I relate better to everyone here than I ever did with anyone who was actually _related_ to me. Not to mention that this is a hell of a lot better than anything I had at home as far as food. Freddy, you'd better be careful or else you'll wind up as the offical cook of the Brotherhood."

Freddy looked a bit embarassed at the flood of complements. "It's nothin', guys. I like cooking and actually keeps me from eating a lot of it."

Todd's jaw dropped. "Woah, Freddy not eating? Kinda freaky... Like... like..."

"Like Todd bathing." Pietro said with a sarcastic grin.

"Or Pietro not being a git." Todd shot back.

"Bless! He said his first word!" Mortimer shot up in his seat. The others looked like him like he had grown another head.

"Um, Mortimer, dear, Todd has been speaking for quite a while now." Mystique pointed out.

"But this was his first proper _British_ word!" Mortimer protested. "Did you hear that? Just like a born limey. Where's my CD with _Hail Britannia_?"

"Man-child." Mystique shook her head with an amused smile spread across her face. "Now how about you, Pietro?"

Pietro blushed a little and shifted akwardly in his seat. While he usually had no problem with the spotlight being on him, it was really... unfamiliar in the family-like atmosphere that had been created in the dining room. "Um... I just wanted to say that I'm thankful for second chances. This year I've been lucky enough to get two of them. I threw away my first chance with the Brotherhood without thinking about what would happen to the rest of you. I stood by when I was little and didn't say anything when Magneto put Wanda into that institution. But now I wouldn't trade any of you guys for another shot at the Acolytes or anything else, and getting another shot at being a brother to my sister has been more than I could have hoped for."

A silence fell over the entire room and Pietro continued to fidget slightly. Finally, Lance broke the quiet. "Man, I almost feel guilty about the hazing now..."

Pietro's head snapped up. "Hazing?! What hazing?"

Lance's managed a somewhat sheepish grin. "Well, after you kinda... Um..."

"Screwed us royaly?" Todd offered.

"Yeah, screwed us royaly, we decided that it might be just a little way to even things out again."

Wanda arched her eyebrow. "Please tell me that's not what those robes that arrived the other day were for."

"Robes?" Pietro was starting to look confused.

"Yeah, robes. Ever see _Animal House_?" Lance laughed.

Pietro gritted his teeth. "If it wasn't for the fact that I know that on some base level I really deserve it..." he managed to get out.

"They're monogramed and everything, Pietro!" Todd laughed. "This is gonna be fun!"

"Yeah, yeah, eat now, haze later. Let's eat that bloody bird before it gets cold." Mortimer growled. It was enough of a growl to get the teens' attention, but still warm enough to help everyone settle back into a more holiday spirit. And then they followed Mortimer's instructions to the letter. In less than an hour, there was little to nothing left of the fatastic feast that was the Brotherhood's first real Thanksgiving.

***

A new kind of quiet had decended over the bording house as its residents slowly went their separate ways after the meal. Todd and Lance had offered to clean the kitchen since Freddy had done all of the day's cooking, but Freddy had insisted on at least keeping them company. Wanda and Pietro had gone off to talk some more, leaving Mystique and Mortimer on the porch. Mystique was sitting on the railing, enjoying the cool air of the night. Mortimer was wrapped up in several layers and obviously not enjoying the weather nearly as much.

"Today was good for them." Mystique said quietly after a few minutes of silence. Mortimer nodded in agreement, then looked over at her with his large yellow eyes.

"But you're thinking 'what's next year going to be like?', aren't you?"

Nodding slightly, Mystique sighed. "They're still young. They've done so much, but they're still young."

"So were we."

"But we had Eric."

"And they have you."

Mystique looked down from her perch. "I'm hardly Erik, Mortimer." A smile played at her lips.

Mortimer caught it. "Got that, luv. I love the man like me father, but I've no desire to see him prancing around in the buff."

"Ahhhh.... So you _do_ realize that I run around naked!"

"Oh bloody... You're impossible, woman!"

"As if you'd have me any other way.

"Haven't had you any way."

"Not for my lack of trying."

"..."

Mortimer suddenly got quiet. The light was dim, and Mortimer's complexion made a blush hard to see in the best of conditions. Mystique slipped off the railing and lay a hand on Mortimer's shoulder, who stiffened under it.

Stiffened, but didn't flinch.

Mystique smiled. She had things she was thankful for too. The strong body that stood next to her in the frosty night air was just one of the most precious. 


	6. Not Everyone Enjoys The Cold

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

**Author's Notes** - Once again, thanks for the reviews and comments! I'm glad so many of you liked Todd's foray into the British lexicon. I'll see if I can't work that in some more. Also, I would like to thank Todd_Fan for the inspiration for part of this. If you've read the story In the Bleak Mid-Winter, you'll know just what. Todd_Fan, I dedicate this chapter to you!

Chapter Six

"You never called."

Xavier looked over at the young blond man who had walked up to stand beside him. "There was really nothing that I could do about the situation, Mystique. The children are all in good care, are doing well in school and have had legal custody transfered into her name. The state saw your leaving as a sign of abandonment and made their decision based on that." As Xavier turned his attention back to the carefully designed city center where he had been waiting for Ororo to join him for a coffee before returning to the Institute, he heard Mystique hiss.

"You could have stopped that..."

"I will not use my powers to influence decisions like that." Xavier said sternly. "And it wasn't just this most recent incident that they considered, Mystique. I have been keeping my eye on the situation, and it doesn't take much to see that this new guardian has done much to improve their quality of life."

"It's _my_ house." Mystique was clutching at straws.

Xavier shook his head. "It was sold. Too much money owed to too many people. You should have minded your everyday life as well as your 'professional' one."

Mystique's body was almost visibly shaking with anger. "Who?"

"The state. It was deemed to be better for everyone involved if the house remained as a bording house for the children."

"She's not going to get away with this." Mystique growled. Xavier sighed. The situation was becoming far too personal to Mystique for Xavier's comfort. Perhaps it would be best if his attention was forcused more onto the shape-shifter rather than the strangers at the Brotherhood's bording house.

***

"Just look at that smug bastard. Just swimming along, not a care in the world." Pietro leaned out over the railing of the balcony which overlooked the pool at the local recreation center. Down below Duncan Mathews had spent the better part of the last half hour swimming laps while Pietro had been sending him poison glares all the while. Todd hopped up beside him and looked down.

"Jerk." Todd grumbled as he leaned up on the rail. "What's his deal anyway? Hittin' on Wanda like that? She ain't even his type."

"Riiight. Wanda's type is smelly and mutated."

"Damn straight, yo!"

Pietro rolled his eyes. "Todd, will you quit having delusions that you're someday going to be my brother-in-law."

"Now you see, Pietro," Todd leaned his back up against the rail and looked up at Pietro with a grin on his face, "that's just defeatist talk. That's the difference between you and me. You see a glass and say it's half-empty. I see a glass and decide to make chocolate milk."

Pietro gave Todd a confused look. "Todd, that made _no_ sense what so ever."

Todd cocked his head and went over his previous statement in his head. Then he gave Pietro a sheepish look. "Guess not. But what's wrong with the idea of me bein' your bro-in-law? Just think how interesting I'd make family reunions."

"There's a good reason our family doesn't have reunions, Todd. Most of us hate each other."

"Oh good. Then I wouldn't have to buck a trend by skipping. Hey, what do you think the kids would look like?"

"Kids? Dear gawd..." Pietro groaned as he refocused his glaring on Duncan, who was getting out of the pool.

"What kinda name would you give a girl?" Todd's voice edged in on his conciousness.

"Oh, I don't know. Always liked Luna..." Pietro's brain slammed on the breaks, "Todd! Give it up!"

"What? I'm sure we'd name it after you if it was a boy."

"That's it, I'm finding a new spot." Pietro sped off to the other end of the observation balcony. Sitting on some beachers, Pietro glared down at Duncan. It seemed that although 'Maximoff' was a name belonging to only two people in the entirety of Bayville, the jock still hadn't put two and two together and figured out that Wanda was Pietro's sister. And dispite Wanda's continued cold shoulder, it appeared that Duncan had taken it as a personal challenge to get her to agree to go out with him. Pietro wasn't quite sure why. Wanda wasn't exactly the jock girlfriend type. She was essentually a punk/goth who hung out with the boys of the Brotherhood who were essentially social parihahs at school.

"Heh... Looks like Mathews is about to perform a rendition of _The Nutcracker_." Todd snickered as Duncan dove off the high dive. As Ducnan hit the water, Todd and Pietro's eyes widened in a mixture of humor and horror. "Oh man, I'm gonna be seein' that in my sleep, yo!" Todd shuddered as Duncan swam one way and his trunks in another.

Pietro shuddered and spun around to exit the balcony. "Come on, Todd. We're gonna head to the locker room."

"Why? Forgot my trunks at home. If I'd known you'd wanted to go swimming..."

"We're not going swimming, Todd." Pietro grabbed Todd's arm and pulled him along. "We're going to set Mathews straight on Wanda."

"But aren't we gonna get in trouble for that?" Todd looked a little worried as they headed down the stairs towards the men's locker room. "I mean, I'm actually enjoying my art class, Pietro."

Rolling his eyes, Pietro pulled Todd into a small booth that was in the small snack area of the recreation center. "Look Todd," Pietro leaned over the table, his eyes darting to the side every so often to make sure that they didn't miss their target, "we're not here to beat him up or anything. All we're going to do is show him that is in his best interest to lay off of Wanda. Besides," Pietro grinned evily, "we're not on school property, so even if we did kick the shit out of him there wouldn't be anything they could do to us."

"But we aren't gonna, right?"

"Nope. I think Wanda would want to be the one to do it if anyone."

"Point taken." "Now come on, Todd. He should be in the locker room by now." Getting up from the booth, Pietro resumed his quick walk towards the locker room while Todd did his best to keep up. It would have been quicker to hop, but Mystique and Mortimer kept insisting that he try and remember to walk while he wasn't doing his training or anywhere but the bording house. Opening the door to the locker room, the two were met by a wall of hot, humid air. Pietro shed his jacket, hanging it on a nearby peg, but the increase in temperature didn't seem to be affecting Todd much as he remained wrapped in his coat and scarf. There were no signs of anyone else in the locker room and Pietro started to wonder if he'd been wrong about Duncan being ready to wrap up his exercise. "Wherethefuckisthatstinkingjerk?" Pietro muttered under his breath as he resisted the urge to search the locker room at top speed. With his luck he'd hit a puddle and the last thing he wanted was to wind up sliding across a locker room floor on his ass.

It was at about that time that a badly out of tune rendition of _Wild Thing_ came from the direction of the showers.

"Oh man, what I wouldn't give for a tape recorder right now." Todd snickered. "What's the plan, Pietro?"

Leaning up against the lockers, Pietro crossed his arms. "We just wait for Mr. Pop-Idol in there to finish and make himself presentable. I, for one, have already seen more of Mathews than I ever cared to today."

"Good point." Todd nodded. "I'm already gonna have to bleach my eyeballs."

"Wouldn't it be easier just to take a bath?"

"Trust me, Pietro, there are some things that just don't smell better with water."

"Ugh..." At about that time the sound of the shower from the next room fell silent and the sound of feet treading through puddles on the floor echoed through the locker room. "Get ready, Todd. Sounds like our boy is about ready." Postitioning themselves carefully behind lockers so that Duncan wouldn't be able to see them as he moved to exit the locker room, Pietro and Todd waited. Eventually they heard a locker slam shut and footsteps approaching their location.

Duncan was reaching to push the door open when he suddenly found himself rushed back into the locker room by what looked like a blur of white. Stumbling backwards, he couldn't see the bench that was right behind him. When bench hit back of knee, Duncan went down, only to be saved from cracking his head on the floor by someone snagging him by the back of the shirt and holding him in that position. He opened his eyes to see a pair of ice blue ones looking down on them accompanied by a sinister smile. "Heya Mathews." Pietro grinned. "Enjoy your swim?" Duncan struggled a bit as he gaped at Pietro. "Oh I wouldn't do that. Wouldn't want Todd to drop you now, would you? At this moment he's the only thing standing between you and a nice cement floor."

Looking up, Duncan gulped as he saw Todd perched on the front of the lockers. Todd grinned down at Duncan. "Yeah, you wouldn't want me to loose my grip here or nothin', would ya? I don't think you'd like hitting the floor too much unless you got some healing factor we don't know about, yo."

With a growl Duncan tried again to sit up, but this time Todd kept enough tension on the back of the jock's shirt to keep him from stitting up. "You stinking freaks! Let go of me! You're going to regret this..."

"I really don't think we will, Mathews." Pietro leaned in closer over Duncan. "And you want to know why? Because you don't have your little jock posse to back you up. And even if you did, it wouldn't make a difference."

The smell of fear rising up from Duncan was almost palatable to the two mutants, even without hightened senses. The jock was sweating, his eyes darting from one mutant to the other and a little more shaking than would normally be expected from a person being supported from behind. "Y... you're full of it, Maximoff." Duncan managed to get out. "I say one thing to Kelly and you are out of school so fast that even your head will be spinning."

"Oh, but I don't think my sister would appreciate that." Pietro's eyes narrowed. "You might know her. She's in your journalism class. Gothy looking, tends to run around in red?"

"W... Wanda? She's _your_ sister?"

"How many Maximoffs do you think are running around in Bayville?" Pietro hissed. "Yes, she's my sister and if you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from her. Your pathetic attempts at flirtation are _not_ appreciated."

"Is that a threat, Maximoff?"

"I'm just the messenger, Mathews. Trust me, Wanda hates your guts as much as Todd and I do." Pietro averted his eyes up to Todd for a moment. "Okay Todd, heft him up."

Todd grinned. "Okay, Pietro. Up ya go, Mathews!" With one smooth motion, Duncan found himself on his feet and stumbled forward a few steps before turning to look at the two mutants with a rather stunned look on his face.

"Becha didn't think Todd here was that strong did ya, Mathews?" Pietro zipped around to Duncan's side. "Trust me, Todd's every bit as dangerous as every other mutant out there. I've seen him put holes in walls, thick ones. I'd hate to see what he could do to you."

The color drained out of Duncan's face as Pietro and Todd headed towards the door.

"I'm glad we had this little talk, Mathews." Pietro smirked. "I guess we'll be seeing you at school on Monday."

When they had left the recreation center, Todd looked over at Pietro. "What the hell was all that stuff about me putting holes in walls? The only holes in walls you've seen me make are the ones from when Wanda Hex Bolts my ass across the room. Man... Hey, you don't think he was serious about going to Kelly, do ya?"

Looking over, Pietro saw the nervous look on Todd's face and gave him what passed as a reassuring smile from Pietro. "Nah. He was talking out his ass."

"I hope you're sure about that, Pietro."

"Oh I am."

Todd looked up at Pietro and noticed a rather self-satisfied smirk plastered across the speedster's face. "Yeah? I know that look, Pietro. You got something planned. What is it? Spill!"

Pietro was silent for a few moments, milking the silence for all it was worth. Finally the smirk broke into a full-fledged grin. "Once again, Quicksilver is fatster than the eye. You might have noticed that Mathews was doing his best to divide his attention between the two of us."

"Yeah? So? He don't trust either of us farther than he can toss Freddy."

"True, but it gave me the opportunity to slip in a little 'insurance' into Mathews' bag."

A confused look crossed over Todd's face. "Insurance? Pietro, if Mathews does something about this, then _we're_ the ones who are gonna be needing the insurance."

"Ah, my dear Todd, you forget that my lovely sister is in the journalism class. As such, she has access to the Audio/Visual department and all their wonderful little techno goodies inside."

"So what? You gonna pull a Mike Wallace on the guy or something?"

"_Have_, Todd. We _have_ pulled a Mike Wallace on him."

"You wanna run that past me again?"

Pietro started to look almost smug. "About a month ago Mathews and his jock squad dumped you in that trash can and rolled you down the halls after school, remember?"

Todd winced. "How could I not, yo? It took both you and Lance to pull me out, my ears were ringing for the next ten minutes, and I smelled worse than usual."

"Well, thanks to your selfless martyrdom," Pietro paused to gesture theatrically, "Wanda and I were able to get the whole thing on tape. Duncan tries anything, and a copy of that tape - colorful anti-mutant epithets and all - gets sent to both the _Bayville Times_ and the local news. Imagine the headlines!" Pietro grabbed Todd around the shoulder and moved his hand in the air as if visualising the front page of the city's paper. "**Bayville High Hotbed for Anti-Mutant Hate Groups**!" "I'm _so_ glad my humilliaition wasn't in vain." Todd snorted.

"Aaaanywhoooo..." Pietro continued, "I slipped Mathews a copy of the tape with that same message. If he's got even an iota of common sense, he won't do a damned thing. If he does, he's going to wind up coming off as an anti-mutant bigot. Even with the current lack of popularity of mutants, no one wants to be labled a bigot."

Todd shrugged off Pietro's arm. "He sure didn't seem to mind after that whole sentinel fiasco."

"Mob mentality." Pietro waved his hand dismissively. "Wouldn't stand up. But this... This was a bunch of bullies at school picking on one of those mutants that everyone says are dangerous and gonna wipe out the human race if we allow them to spawn. But what of that poor little mutant? Did he fight back with those 'super-powers'? No! How much more obvious could it get that your 'average' mutant is less dangerous than your average high school jock?"

"Heh... Well, it was painfully obvious to me." Todd grinned sheepishly. "Hey, wait a minute... That ain't your regular sort of plan."

Pietro looked like a little of the wind had been taken out of his sails. "No, it's not. How'd you guess.

"'Cause yours usually are more along the lines of sonic wedgies or something. Come one, is it one of Mystique's?"

"Wanda's actually." Pietro admitted. "She cleared it with Mystique though."

"Heh... Figures. Mystique's right. Wanda's got a great head for this plannin' stuff." A shiver ran down Todd's back as he wrapped his arms around himself. "Hey, how about we get back to the house, Pietro. It's freezin' out here."

***

"Bloody hell..!" Mortimer growled as he stormed up from the basement. Small puffs of breath could be seen as he bypassed the stairs in the front hall completely by jumping up to the second floor landing.

Lance poked his head out into the hall as Mystique walked up from the basement with a somewhat tired look on her face. "Hey, you two didn't just have a fight or anything did you?" Lance asked, a slightly worried look on his face.

Mystique shook her head. "No, no. It's just that the furnace just decided to blow. We're going to be without heat until we can get someone out here from the electric company to fix it."

"Mortimer can't? Didn't think there was anything that he couldn't fix."

Walking into the den, Mystique knelt down and pulled a few logs from the large bucket next to the fireplace and positioned them carefully. Then, after sticking in a few wads of newspaper for kindling, she lit a fire with a Zippo (easily swiped from Pyro in a petty, but funny, act by Mortimer before being transported to this dimention). She sat back for a moment before gently prodding the growing fire with a poker before turning to face Lance. "Well, he would normally be able to fix it, but it's just that the cold is starting to get to him and it's making it hard for him to do anything that requires intense concentration or manual dexterity. So, seeing as how the rest of us are in no way qualified to do anything to that furnace, we wait for the repairman to come tomorrow."

Lance looked a little confused. "The cold affects him?"

"Certainly." Mystique nodded. "While Mortimer's not a true amphibian, he does share many of the same characteristics. He doesn't have a lot of body hair and he has almost no body fat so he looses heat exceedingly fast. If he doesn't keep warm, he has a tendency to almost... well, almost hibernate."

It was about that time when Mortimer trudged into the den and saw the fire. He was wrapped from head to toe in his bed's comforter, but it looked as if he cast an appreciative glace Mystique's way when he saw the now-roaring flames. Without saying a word, Mortimer dropped himself into the overstuffed chair that Mystique usually sat in, pulling the comforter closer around him. "Awwww." Mystique cooed as she eased onto the chair's arm and ruffled the hair on top of Motimer's head. "You look positively chilled, dear."

"It's bloody freezing in this house." Mortimer grumbled, pressing himself further into the chair.

"You need some extra body heat." Mystique grinned as she dropped herself into Mortimer's lap. Instead of stiffening like usual, Mortimer's arms darted out from underthe comforter with unusual speed for someone slowed by sluggish blood, and pulled the blue shape-shifter closer. "Finally!" Mystique laughed, "I've been after that sort of reaction for months!"

"If I wasn't so bloody cold..."

"Then you'd really be enjoying that." Lance snickered from the sofa.

Mortimer glared at him. "Aren't you a little young for that?"

"Nah, I go to public high school, remember?"

"Bloody little..."

"Now, now, you just stay warm." Mystique purred as she curled up in Mortimer's lap.

"Ah, home sweet home!" Todd's voice sounded in the entryway. The small mutant hopped into the den with Pietro behind him and shed his jacket and scarf. As soon as they were hung, Todd stopped and noticed the small puffs of breath that were forming in front of him. "Hey... It's cold in here, yo! What gives?"

"Furnace died." Lance answered.

"Bundle up, lad." Mortimer muttered from under Mystique and the comforter. "You'll start feeling it in a bit, I'll wager."

***

"Thanks for helping me out, Freddy." Wanda smiled down at her team mate with a rare smile. "I _really_ appreciate you walking me to the mall. I didn't expect the snow to get so deep so fast." It was a rather odd sight, the two members of the Brotherhood heading towards the Bayville Mall. Most of the roads that were not main streets hadn't yet been plowed and unlike Pietro and Todd who could both move quickly through the snow, Wanda would have spent a good part of the day trudging through the while drifts. Hex Bolts were all well and good, but they just didn't cut it sometimes.

So Freddy had volunteered to give Wanda a lift to the mall.

A lift in the most literal sense of the word.

Wanda was thankfull that Freddy was strong enough that her extra weight didn't really factor in to the energy he had to use to make his way through the snow. She had been a little worried that she'd tire him out, but Freddy had just laughed at that idea. Then he had just picked her up and placed her on his shoulder.

"So what exactly are you shopping for?" Freddy asked in an attempt to make conversation.

"Snow boots, actually." Wanda laughed. "So I won't have to put you through this again. I'm a bit embarassed, actually. Pietro said that they were calling for more snow, but I just didn't think it would get so deep overnight so I put it off a day."

"Ah." Freddy nodded. "That was the first thing Lance and Todd said I should get when winter came around last year. I had my regular boots, but they're not much good at keeping my feet warm when it snows."

"Southern boy?"

Freddy grinned, "Yeah."

"Didn't think you were the type for mall shopping, though."

"Cabin feaver?" Freddy offered with a slight shrug.

Wanda laughed. "Have to admit that I'm with you there. I was going to blast the next person I saw through a wall if you hadn't offered to help me through this snow."

"You think you could? It would have to have been either me or Lance."

"Hmmmm, yeah, the two of you are harder to legitimately toast than Pietro and Todd." Wanda mused. She looked down at the road to see that the concrete slabs of the sidewalk could be seen and the mall's large marquee wasn't too far off in the distance. "You can put me down now, Freddy. Thanks for the ride."

"No problem." Freddy smiled as he put Wanda carefully on the sidewalk. "Mind if I just tag along?" he asked hopefully. Wanda couldn't help but think of him as a big puppy sometimes. It wasn't the crush type of attention like Todd heaped on in massive overdoses, but rather just a joy in being included. While the old Brotherhood had seen Freddy as more or less the dumb muscle of the group, he'd recently gotten a little less socially akward and Wanda found that he was a genuinely pleasant person to be around.

"I don't mind at all. Probably won't be many people there anyway."

"Yeah, this ain't the greatest weather to be out in." Freddy replied as he held the door to the mall open for Wanda. "But on the upside, we probably won't run into any of the X-geeks."

Wanda nodded as she lead the way through the shopping center. The Scarlet Witch didn't have a whole lot against the X-Men personally, but it was something of a, well, a brotherhood deal. You had to watch out for your own and as much as she hated to admit it sometimes, the Brotherhood was her family now.

Well, there was that Rogue girl.

Leaving the Brotherhood and then turning into a prep/goth. It was irksome.

Wandering into Sears, not one of Wanda's regualar haunts, the two teens spent a while looking for the boots before Freddy finally pointed out to Wanda that since they're ment for more utilitarian purposes than regular boots, they might be with the other outdoors merchandse. After finding a pair that fit, the two made their way over to the food court to grab something to eat until they felt warm enough to go back out into the snow.

"Hey, where did Pietro and Todd go earlier?" Freddy finally asked as they were walking back towards the exit of the mall with cups of hot chocolate from one of the kiosks warming their hands.

Wanda's mouth twitched into a smile. "They were going to the rec center to deliver a message to Mathews. I've got a good feeling that we're not going to have to worry about him for a while." Freddy gave her a I-probably-don't-want-to-know look as they walked out into the cold evening air.

The sun was setting and the two teens did their best to get back to the bording house before there wasn't any more light in the sky. They weren't frightened of anything they might run into on the street, but at the same time they didn't want to run themselves straight into a situation where they would have to be... 'assertive.' Sublety was still the callword that the Brotherhood members were bound by. When they reached the edge of the main shopping area, Freddy hoisted Wanda back onto his shoulder and started to wade back through the snow to the bording house.

Most of the snow in the front yard was either packed down from the snowball fight the previous day or laying in totally random piles from where Lance had created 'snow tsunami' during said fight, so Wanda was able to walk the last bit of the drive. Through the front windows, Wanda and Freddy saw that someone had built a fire in the fireplace. "Everyone, we're back!" Wanda called as they walked into the front hall.

"CLOSE THE BLOODY DOOR!"

"IT'S FUCKING FREAZIN' IN HERE, YO!"

"Someone sounds like they're in a bad mood." Wanda commented as the two hung up their jackets and took off their damp shoes.

"Nah, they're just freezing since the furnace broke." Lance grinned as he came down the stairs with a heavy sweater on. "They've had a dog pile going on in the for the last hour at least."

Freddy headed in to the kitchen to get dinner started. "Guess I'd better make sure dinner's something hot, huh?" he asked as Lance followed him. Grabbing the kettle from the stove, Lance filled it with water and then set it back down on the back burner to boil.

"Probably." Lance nodded in agreemement. "Todd and Mortimer have been grumbling ever since you and Wanda left. Mystique's been enjoying it though." He added the last bit with a slightly amused grin.

Back in the den, Wanda was met by Mystique in the middle of a Toad sandwich. The three were still piled in the chair, Mortimer on the bottom, Mystique in the middle, and Todd curled up on top. The two Toads looked like they were asleep, although if the odd noise sounded Mortimer peered out from half-opened eyes which closed as soon as he determined that everything was alright. It looked like just about every spare blanket in the house had been brought down to add to what looked like a comic visual reversal of the Princess and the Pea. When the shape-shifter heard Wanda enter the room, she looked up at the younger mutant through lazy yellow eyes. A cheshire grin spread across her face as Wanda sat down on the couch opposite the dog pile. "Your shopping trip go alright?" Mystique asked quietly as she lazily ran her fingers through Todd's shaggy hair.

"Got boots that'll keep my feet dry." Wanda nodded. "You look like you've been having a good afternoon."

Brilliant white teeth flashed against dark blue skin as Mystique's smile widened. "Can't complain."

Wanda looked over at the fireplace, to see Pietro sitting and watching the fire as it crackled and popped. She hadn't even realized her brother was in the room. Usually he would have made some noise. Wanda leaned over the arm of the couch and drumed her fingers on the top of his head. "Hey, what you been up to, Pietro?" she asked quietly. Pietro started as she touched him and quickly looked around. Wanda noted with amusement that it wasn't the normal fear reaction of the possibility of being Hex Bolted into the wall, but rather the fact that he had been so absorbed in watching the fire he simply hadn't noticed her at all. It was something to think of that not only had the bording house been quiet enough for him to loose himself in watching something other than a high-speed pursuit cop show, but he had obviously been sitting doing something so _stationary_ for such a long period of time.

Pietro's face turned slightly red, not used at being caught off-guard like that. "Uh, what did you say, Wanda? I didn't quite catch it the first time."

Wanda smiled. "Asked what you've been up to all day while I dragged poor Freddy around the mall."

"Ohhhhh...." Pietro's embarassed expression turned into an impishly mischivious one, "that. Well, Todd and I just paied a visit to your unwelcome suitor."

"So I'm back down to one?" Wanda grinned, casting a quick look over to Todd, who was still huddled up on Mystique's lap. "I think I can handle that one."

"You do?" Mystique lazily asked from the chair. "Good, then you can take him. I'm going to get something to drink since I think Lance is making some hot cider in the kitchen."

Sliding off Mortimer's lap, Mystique picked Todd up, blankets and all, and dumped him rather uncerimonally into Wanda's lap.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Wanda exclaimed as she found herself with a lapfull of Todd.

For a moment Todd's eyes flew open as he hit the couch. He looked up for a moment, somewhat confused. "What happened? It's cold!" he exclaimed. Looking over at Wanda, he grinned. "Alright! Body heat!" he exclaimed gleefully as he snuggled down.

"Now be nice to him, Wanda." Mystique instructed. "He's just cold."

Wanda glared at Mystique, but didn't move to remove Todd from his new spot. "Just don't think I'd do this for you on a regular basis, Todd. I don't like you that much." she growled.

Todd smiled under his blanket. "Too late, Sweetums, this one show of concern is now perminately etched into my male mind. Now if you don't mind, I'm gonna hibernate until March."

"Gaah! Todd..! Argh! Once you get warmed back up..!" Wanda sputtered. Mystique just laughted and headed towards the kitchen.

It was at about that time that Motimer sluggishly oppened his eyes. Under his blankets his legs were moving around, and suddenly the realization that there was a lot less weight and _a lot_ less body heat around hit him. "Oy! Where'd me legwarmer go?! Mystique? Where'd you go, woman?"

"I'm just going to the kitchen, Mortimer. I'll be back in a min-urk..!" Mystique was cut off as she was yanked backwards by an incredibly long, green tongue. She landed back in Mortimer's lap with a thump and found herself wrapped in his arms as he pulled her up against his body.

"Like hell." he growled. "You ain't going anywhere until I get enough feeling back in me legs to make it to me bedroom."

Wanda and Pietro looked at each other for a moment. "That was... odd." Pietro said slowly. "Hey Todd, could you do that?"

"Mummum...."

Pietro poked him a few times. "Hey, Todd, you hear me?"

Todd squirmed a little before peeking out from under his blanket. "Can I do what?"

"Yank someone across the room with your tongue." Pietro repeated.

"Sure I could." Todd muttered, not at all happy about being bothered. "I just _don't_."

"Why not?"

"Because I taste everything I wrap my tongue around. If you think Nightcrawler smells bad when he bamfs, you oughta try tasting it sometime. It's pretty foul. Now if you don't mind, I'm going back to sleep."

***

Erik Lensherr rubbed his temples in the vain hope that the blinding headache that had been throbbing for the past few hours would go away of its own accord. After hours of listening to Pyro and Sabertooth bickering like children, the mutant known to the world as Magneto had retreated to his office for some solitude.

His office was located deep in the heart of the island hideout. It had been nothing more than a cavern when he first started to work on converting the island into a base of operations. Now the room was covered in small metal plates that gave it more than a passing resemblance to Cerebro. A wonderful plus of course being that the room operated much on the same principle that his helmet did, making it just about the only place on earth that he could go without his helmet and not worry about Charles picking up on his thoughts. On the far side of the room there had been a ledge that hung over a drop off of hundreds of feet. It was now home to Erik's desk and was a retreat that none of the other members of the Brotherhood had ever been able to reach unless Erik granted them access via a bridge made of the squares that lined the walls.

The situation within the Brotherhood was getting to be unbearable. The absence of Mystique and Toad was not only an incredibly fustrating mystery to Erik, but it left him with two companions who had very little in the way of use to him in anything other than a battle situation. Trying to talk to Pyro was worse than trying to convince Charles that modern art was mindless drivil. And talking to Sabertooth about anything other than a mission was impossible.

Of course, it was the mystery of what had happened to Mystique and Toad that had him more concerned. Erik didn't believe that either left of their own accord. Toad and Mystique had prooved themselves to him far too often for him to doubt their loyalty to him and to their cause.

That, of course, only left the possiblity that they were taken against their will. That posed problems as well. There was virtually no way that anyone could get into the base without tripping one of the alarms that Toad had installed as part of his series of improvements to the base. Of course, it was always possible, just not very probable. One of the X-Men might be able to accomplish it, but kidnapping wasn't their style.

Another problem was in the ablility of anyone to actually be able to take Mystique and Toad. Both mutants were formidable fighters. Toad, Erik knew, was an expert kickboxer and Mystique was certainly more than able to take care of herself. If there had been combat, then surely at least Sabertooth would have heard it. That's why that blasted animal was kept around for pete's sake!

But there hadn't been any noise. No sound of an altercation, and no sign of anything amiss when all three of the remaining members had searched for them.

Erik wasn't sure what bothered him more, the fact that his two best agents were missing or the fact that Erik himself had no idea how, why or by whom they had been taken.

With a sigh Erik stood up and gestured with one hand, creating a bridge to cross back into the main area of the lair. The headache was still there. He was going to have to send Pyro into the city to get something for it. As he left his sanctuary, he heard a commotion coming from the common room. No doubt Pyro and Sabertooth were once again at each other's throats. Erik shook his head. One of these days Sabertooth was going to catch that boy without that lighter and Pyro would be shredded to ribbons. At least when Toad had picked fights with Sabertooth it was the knowledge that he would be able to easily escape.

A sudden crash made Erik wince.

He had to find Mystique and Toad. He was going to lose what was left of his sanity if this kept up for much longer. 


	7. Have A Merry XMas

**The Big Brotherhood Program**

**Author's Notes** - Gaaa! Sorry about this chapter taking so long, but real life butted in and muses weren't playing nicely. I promise the next chapter will be a lot sooner in coming.

Chapter Seven

Freddy couldn't quite place it, but there was a distinctly different smell in the air. Sitting up in bed, he reached over and pulled on his sweatshirt before heading downstairs. There was no doubt about it - there was an unusually strong smell coming from the direction of the den. It wasn't an unpleasent smell, it was familiar, but it seemed out of place inside.

"This is _perfect_, Mortimer!" Mystique's voice sounded extremely pleased as it rang out from the den.

"It had better be." Mortimer snorted. "I spent long enough looking for it."

Looking in the den, Freddy found the source of the smell - a fur tree planted in the corner of the den next to the fireplace. Mystique stood a few paces away from the tree, tilting her head slightly from the left to the right to satisfy herself that it was placed totally upright. Mortimer had retreated a few steps and flopped down on the chair, pulling his knees up to his chin. A moment later Mystique nodded, finding the tree satisfactory.

"What's goin' on?" Freddy asked as he moved into the den. _Man, is it Christmas time already?_

As if picking up on his thoughts, Mystique gestured to a brown cardboard box on the floor in front of the couch. "Mortimer and I thought that this place needed a little seasonal dressing up." she smiled. "Mortimer went and found a tree this morning and, believe it or not, there was actually this box of ordiments in the attic." She opened up the box and pulled out one of the decorations.

It was an old ordiment, made from gingerbread, but in wonderful condition. It had been lovingly wrapped in a cloth hankerchief, and whatever preservative had been used on the gingerbread man had done a stupendous job of keeping every detail in place. Mystique flipped the ordiment over. The date on the back read 'Christmas - 1940.' Amazing that it had held up this long. Of course, it had probably belonged to whoever had owned the house before the former Mystique had. If the rest of the house had been as ill-kept as the dining room had... Well, a few boxes up in the attic would hardly surprise her.

Mortimer looked over at Freddy from his seat in the chair. "You kids had knock yourself out with trimmin' that bugger when you get back from classes."

"Hey, thought I smelled Christmas tree in here!" Lance grinned as he joined the three other mutants. "You going to do some decorating while we're at school?"

"We're not touching the tree until the five of you get back." Mystique answered. "But I might drag Mortimer out to get some other things."

"Wonderful." Mortimer groaned.

"Most people would love a white Christmas, Mort." Lance pointed out.

Leaning back over the arm of the chair, Mortimer gave Lance an upside-down glare. "Most people don't go into bloody hibernation when it gets below freezing."

"I'll second that, yo." Todd hopped down from the second floor landing. The small mutant was wrapped up from head to toe. Although the furnace in the bording house had been fixed for a while now, Todd still bundled up as much as was possible. Today he was decked out in a grey turtleneck sweater and had a scarf wrapped around his neck. A pair of slate blue mittens were stuffed in his pockets to be pulled on when he was ready to leave the house. "Hey, where's Wanda and Pietro? We're gonna be late for class."

"Late for class? _Moi_?" Pietro was down the stairs a second later. "Not likely. Wanda's just about ready. She has to do this interview thing for the school paper today with some speaker who's coming to talk to the drama class. Her teacher wants her to look 'less goth' when she does it." Pietro explained.

"Well it's less painful than what I have to do for mid-terms." Wanda joined the conversation from the stairs. "I actually have to do a fucking report with Mathews."

Todd and Lance scowled at the thought. Freddy didn't look too pleased, either. Pietro, on the other hand, was cracking an evil grin. "Oh, tell me you're going to be doing all of the work over here."

Wanda looked at her brother with a confused look on her face for a moment. "You _want_ me to bring that idiot into this house?"

"Well, sure." Pietro shrugged. "One, it gives me the chance to make sure he doesn't act like a jerk towards you and two, just imagine what he'd go through being in a house filled from top to bottom with mutants!"

"Pietro, you are terrible." Wanda grinned as she made her way to the coat rack to pull on her red trenchcoat.

"Runs in the family, I guess."

"Okay, off with all of you." Mystique started herding the teens towards the door. "You've got one last day of class before winter break, and you know that Kelly will have your hides if you're late."

***

"Bloody hell, Mystique. Why'd you have to go and drag me out here today?" Mortimer growled as two mutants entered yet another department store at Bayville Mall.

Mystique paused a moment to look at the map of the store before answering. "Because this place is going to be flooded with teenagers tomorrow who won't have anything better to do than get in our way."

"I'm pretty sure they stay out of Sears, luv."

"I also wanted to get some suprises for the kids before I have them around all the time." Mystique added.

Mortimer arched an eyebrow under his hood as the two of them got onto the escalator and rode it up to the second floor of the store. Mystique was leaning against the rail of the escalator, with an oddly wistful smile. "Cor, luv. You're really enjoying taking care of these guys, aren't you?"

Mystique looked down the few steps to where Mortimer was looking up at her, his features bearly visible from the depths of his hood. She shrugged slightly. "This is the closest thing I've had to a real family since my mutation manifested. I intend to enjoy the normality as long as we can give it to them." For a moment, Mystique was quiet. "How about you, Mortimer?"

"I've never had a real family, luv." Mortimer gave a rueful chuckle as they got off the escalator and Mystique consulted the map for the second floor of the store. "I've been a pretty obvious a mutant from birth, remember? This is probably the most 'normal' I've ever lived."

"It's nice, isn't it?" Mystique smiled gently. Under his hood Mortimer just smiled a little and nodded as he shoved his hands into his coat pockets. Gently lacing one of her own arms through his, Mystique lead Mortimer towards a section of the store that had been set aside for Christmas decorations. Mortimer walked a little stiffly beside her. He was still getting used to familiar touching in a non-training situation, he wasn't sure if he was ready for close contact in the middle of the city mall! But Mystique had a smile on her face and was examining the Christmas decorations on sale in such a domestic way that almost made it hard for Mortimer to believe that she was an internationaly wanted mutant terrorist.

In an attempt to look casual, Mortimer started people-watching as Mystique looked around. He really didn't have much interest in shopping, Christmas or otherwise. He's probably wind up taking the kids someplace rather than buying them anything for Christmas.

_Bugger, she's got me doing it now._ Mortimer smiled and shook his head.

***

"I can't believe I'm doing this."

"Hey, look, this ain't my idea of a good time either, but we might as well get it over with and there ain't no way in hell I'm going over to your place, yo."

Todd huddled down in the front seat of Scott's convertable. It was a soft-top, and therefore freezing inside. _At least the Jeep had a hard-top._ Todd mentally growled as he crossed his arms and did his best to keep from nodding off. They were almost at the bording house, and there it was heated. Luckily, Todd had managed to call ahead to warn Mystique and Mortimer that the X-Man was coming home with him. Neither adult had been too thrilled with the idea, but then again, neither was Todd.

But fate was not kind.

Todd and Scott were assigned to do a presentation together in art class after the Christmas break. Since they were given a chance to talk about their project during class, they had come to the decision that getting it done as soon as possible was the best thing for the two of them. Todd, of course, refused to go to the Institute to do it. Scott had argued that since they were going to be there for school, not to fight, Todd didn't have anything to worry about. Todd had replied that the last time he had taken Scott up on an offer to visit the Institute, he had wound up getting attacked and got into a fight with Kurt that had resulted in both of them nearly getting killed in the Danger Room.

Not that Scott could deny that fact. Todd _had_ been attacked without provocation then.

_At least I got a chance to call the house._ Todd thought as he looked out the window. _Probably would wind up in some sort of grudge match between Lance and One-Eye if we just showed up._ The ride ended shortly after that, the convertable pulling into the driveway of the Brotherhood's house. Todd jumped out and made a dash for the front door, eager to get into the warmth inside. Scott lingered by the car for a moment, just taking in the change in the house since the last time he had seen it.

Lance's Jeep was parked in the front yard, but that was just about the only thing that was the same. All of the windows had glass and what looked like newly painted shutters. The front porch had all the railings repaired and whole house looked like it had been given a great deal of mantenance work recently. Thinking back, Scott remembered that Logan had mentioned something along those lines to the Professor a while ago, but he hadn't paied too much attention to it. He mused for a moment about who had done the repair work; none of the Brotherhood really struck him as the type who was handy with tools. Lance might have a knack for auto mantenance work, but that was hardly the same thing. Scott's thoughts were interupted by Todd. "Yo, Summers? You coming? I'm freezing out here!"

"Oh, uh, sorry." Scott muttered, reaching into the backseat and grabbing his backpack before running up to the front steps of the porch. Todd held the door open for him and gave a careless gesture that looked like an indication for Scott to go ahead on in first.

Once he was inside, Scott had to resist the urge to whistle. Rogue had talked about how messy the inside of the bording how was. Things must have certainly turned around since then. The place almost looked like any average house nestled in suburbia - if you ignored the footprints on the walls and ceiling. Oddly enough there appeared to be two different sizes of footprints. Scott puzzled over the fact for a second. As far as he knew, Todd was the only member of the Brotherhood with the ability to climb walls.

***

Computers were not something that Erik liked to use. The flashing screens gave him a headache, he could never find anything that he needed without help, and there was the fact that if he lost control over his mutant power for even a moment he would erase the hard drive.

He just thanked whatever god there was for Google. Just type it in and let the blasted thing find it for you.

The library's computers were a godsend as far as Erik's computer needs, though. Academic enough to keep away annoying Pyro-esc teens and nice and quiet as well. Leaning back in his chair, he steepled his fingers for a brief moment before beginning his search.

There was no real method behind it seeing as how Erik really had no idea of what it was that he was looking for. Military activity? Not if the government knew what was good for them. Erik's mouth twisted into a smile for a moment. No, the government wouldn't forget their last encounter with Magneto for quite a while. Perhaps it was some sort of anti-mutant group? Erik had heard roumors of such things. Called themselves the Friends of Humanity or some such nonsense. Supressing a snort, the thought was dismissed almost as soon as it had formed. From all reports the Friends of Humanity and all their ilk were no more a threat than those ani-government militia groups that holed themselves up in the middle of nowhere and declaired themselves the Free State of Something-or-Other.

Leaning back in his chair, Erik removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Before now he had always relied on Mystique to gather information like this.

Click on another link.

_Now what have we here?_ Erik replaced his glasses and leaned forward.

A university academic site, science, one dedicated to spacial anomalies.

Promising...

***

"Man, I didn't think he'd ever leave." Lance growled as he watched Scott's car dissapear around a bend in the road. "Ten bucks says he gives the X-Geeks a full report when he gets to the Xavier place."

Todd shrugged as he collected his books. "No bets here, yo. Wouldn't surprise me if he called ahead."

"I'm guessing there's a little more than just team loyalty that's diggin at you lads." Mortimer commented as he walked into the room with a box in his hands. "Something a little more personal?"

Lance hrumphed. "You mean acting like they're God's gift to mutantkind?"

"I got jumped first time I went over to their place." Todd added, "I was all invited and everything. Wanna know what happened? I got attacked by Storm the minute I set foot on the property! No warning or nothing!"

Placing the box on the ground, Mortimer turned to Todd. "If you _ever_ see Storm coming at you, you bloody well get the hell away from her." Todd and Lance both froze. Mortimer was using a rather dangerous voice, one they hadn't ever heard him use before. "If there are two things that do not mix, it's Toads and Storms."

Lance and Todd looked at each other for a moment and then back at Mortimer. The larger Toad had turned and was rubbing his hands. They weren't bandaged any more, but there was still a residual soreness to them that Mortimer wasn't sure was ever going to go away. "Umm, Mort?" Lance took a step closer to Mortimer. "You okay?"

Mortimer sighed and turned to face the two teens. "A year or so ago is when our Brotherhood first started to really come into conflict with the X-Men. Magneto had this plan and he needed that girl Rogue to make it work."

"That's not good." Todd hopped onto the couch and then over to the fireplace to prod the dying fire back up. "Nothing that involves Rogue ever turns out good."

"I'll agree with you there." Mortimer nodded, slumping down onto the couch. "Anyway, Magneto had his plan all set up, but of course the X-Men had to come and do their whole little hero-type thing. Never you mind that what we were doing might well have solved the whole mutant/human problem in one swoop. Anyway, naturally we're trying to keep the X-Men from stopping the boss, get into this big old nock-down-drag-out. Mystique is out taking care of Worlverine and I get left with Jean Grey, Cyclops and Storm since Sabertooth's not around to help, bloody git."

"Why you fightin' kids?" Todd asked as he hopped back up onto the couch.

"Probably weren't kids, Todd." Lance laughed. "Think about it, where he's from Toad is an adult. The X-Men probably are too."

"Bingo." Mortimer nodded. "Anyway, Cyclops and Jean Grey, no problem. Then I knock Storm down the shaft to a lift nearby. Figure she's down for the count and start to head off to see if Mystique needs any help. I get about halfway out the room when Storm manages to get herself out of the lift. And you know what she does?" Both boys shook their heads. "She gives me this corny line, bloody hell, what was it? Oh, yeah, get this. She asks me, 'you know what happens to a toad that's struck by lighting? The same thing that happens to everything else.' And then she blows me into the middle of New York Harbor with a bolt of lightning! Let me tell you, if there's one way to have your day ruined, that's it! Long story even shorter, Toads and Sorms **do not mix**."

Todd looked at Lance and then back at Mortimer. "Okay... No Storm-fightin'. Gotcha."

The three sat there quietly for a while, no one really sure how to break the akward silence. Suddenly, the kitchen door swung open and Mystique and Freddy did it for them.

"Who's up for Christmas Pudding!" Mystique sang as Freddy set the desert down on the coffee table. Looking over at Mortimer's sullen expression, she smiled as she wrapped her arms over his shoulders. "Awwww, is someone brooding over a certain X-Woman?" Mortimer just snorted. "Hey, don't forget I got a nasty introduction to Wolverine's claws that day, but I don't let that get me down. Now," Mystique stood up and looked around the room. "Where are Wanda and Pietro? This tree isn't going to decorate itself."

"Right here!" Pietro skidded into the living room, Wanda with a death grip on him as she rode piggy back. Her face was red and she was breathing hard.

"That is the last time I let you convince me to let you carry me at high speed." Wanda said as she got down and made her way to the couch. "People are not ment to go that fast!"

Pietro smirked. "I am."

Mystique just shook her head as she pulled out the box of ordiments. Placing them near the overstuffed chair, she sat down and opened the box. "Freddy, be a dear and serve up some of that pudding for everyone. I've also got some cider in the kitchen that's warming up if anyone wants it." Leaning over, Mystique pulled out one of the old ordiments and carefully unwraped it, laying the tissue paper to the side so that she could save it for when they cleaned up everything. The first decoration was a small wooden hobby-horse. "Todd, youngest in the house gets first ordiment."

Todd hopped over to Mystique and took the hobby-horse from her. "Heh... Ain't this something. My first Christmas tree, yo!"

"First for quite a few, I would imagine." Mystique murmured as Todd hopped over to the tree. She looked up at Mortimer, who had come around behind her and was leaning on the back of the chair. Without making eye contact, he just nodded.

After a little while a small assembly line was started. Mystique unwrapping ordiments and laying them out on the floor for the teens to place on the tree. Mortimer had gone into the kitchen and brought out the cider for everyone. The tree was decorated fairly quickly this way, and the bording house's residents were about to settle down for some of Freddy's home made gingerbread when suddenly they heard a scream and the sound of someone landing on the cieling. Looking up, they saw Todd shaking as he held the ceiling in a death grip. "Umm, Todd, what are you doing up there?" Lance asked.

"There's a spider down there!" Todd replied, a shiver running down his spine. "Aw man, that was gross!"

The twins looked at each other and then back up at Todd. "Todd don't you think that's a little silly?" Wanda sighed as she leaned back against the couch.

"Especially coming from someone who eats roaches?" Pietro added, folding one arm in his lap as he started nibbling on a gingerbread man.

"You don't underdand." Todd shivered again. "This was a _spider_! They're all hairy, and gross!"

Mortimer nodded before shooting his tongue out to snag a cookie out from under Lance's hand. "I know _exactly_ where you're coming from, lad. I tried eating a spider once. _Once_." Looking at the others, Mortimer shook a finger as he lectured. "Try eating a kiwi fruit without peeling it. And then imagine it still moving. Disgusting things, spiders."

Freddy, meanwhile, had gotten up and found the offending arachnid. Carefully, he scooped the small spider onto a paper plate and carried it into the kitchen. He came back out a moment later as Todd was carefully climbing back down the wall, glancing every which way to make sure there weren't any more to bee seen. "It's okay, Todd. I put the little guy in the pantry. He's not going to bother you any more."

"The pantry? Why didn't you put him outside?!"

Freddy crossed his arms. "It's cold outside, Todd. I don't think a spider would like it very much. Besides, spiders keep other insects out of the food. You guys never make anything from scratch anyway, so he won't be a problem in the pantry."

Todd didn't look too sure. "Well... You just be sure he stays in there. Or else next time we meet, Mister Spider is gonna meet Mister Sneaker."

"So," Mystique interjected, "any thoughts on what to do over winter break?"

"Besides hanging out here?" Pietro asked.

"That was the gist of it." Mystique nodded. I thought you all might enjoy actually getting out of Bayville for a little while."

"Going someplace for New Year's would be fun." Wanda ventured. "And there are a lot of places that have things to do then."

"Like New York City." Lance tossed in.

Mortimer shivered. "Just so long as we'd be staying away from the harbor."

Mystique curled up in her chair. "Well, I'll admit that in all the time I've spent in New York, I've never actually gone to Times Square to see the ball drop. It just might be fun. Is that something everyone would be up for?"

A unanimous 'Aye' came from each of the teens.

"Just so long as we keep away from the bloody harbor." Mortimer repeated. "I've no desire to have a repeat performance of last year."

Mystique nodded and waved her hand carelessly. "Okay, no going near the harbor. Now, my connections in New York aren't going to help me one bit in this dimention. I used to have quite the network going in our own dimention, but I should still be able to work something comfortable out. There's usually some charitable group or another who is willing to foot the bill for some underprivilaged teenagers to experiance the culture and ambiance of New York." "Or failing that," Pietro tossed a wallet over to Mystique, "your predecessor had quite the line of credit."

***

"It was weird." Scott remarked thoughtfully as he chewed on an apple. "I mean, it was totally ordinary. Not something I normally associate with the Brotherhood."

"You mean to tell me that you spend all afternoon at the Brotherhood's plance, and Pietro didn't make one wisecrack, Blob didn't make one threat, Lance didn't throw one nasty look, Tolenksi didn't do one gross thing, and Wanda didn't flip out at all?" Evan leaned back in his seat, giving Scott a somewhat skeptical look. Still chewing, Scott just nodded with a slight shrugg of his shoulders thrown in for emphasis.

"I for one must say that it's commendable on their part." Hank McCoy commented. "They've gone from virtual drop-outs to being students in good standing."

Kitty crossed her arms. "It's still freaky in a way. I mean, I keep expecting them to go all children of the corn on us."

At the end of the table, Xavier sat with his eyes closed in thought. This Mystique and her companion, whoever he was, had indeed proved to be a positive thing for the Brotherhood. But at the same time, it was Mystique, and if there was one thing that Xavier had learned over the years, it was that you could never trust Mystique absolutely. Not to mention there was the question of the old Mystique. She was still around and possibly posed a threat to the Brotherhood that they either did not know about or may not be taking seriously.

_***BAMF!***_

A sudden cloud of sulfurous smoke signaled the arrival of Kurt as he teleported into the room with the daily mail. There were a few letters from home for several of the Institute residents, a few pieces of business mail for Xavier, the regular ammount of junk mail, and then there was one letter that was addressed to 'Xavier Institute Residents.'

"This one doesn't have a return address, Professor." Kurt informed Xavier as he handed the green envelope to him.

Xavier looked at the address for a moment, trying to see if he could recognize the handwriting. He thought he knew it from somewhere, but couldn't be sure. Opening up the envelope, he was rather surprised to find that inside was a Christmas card. On the front was a simple picture of a Christmas tree in a snow-covered field. Opening it up, he scanned the message.

_To all the Residents of the Xavier Institute:_

Have a happy holiday season and a merry 'X-Mas.'

The Brotherhood

Logan looked up from his beer and over at Xavier. "So what is it, Charles?"

"It's from the Brotherhood." Xavier said slowly. "They sent us a Christmas card."

"So what do you think it means?" Logan asked.

Xavier looked thoughtful for a moment. Then he smiled. "Well, I would say that it means that I will just have to add them to my Christmas card list to return the favor."

***

Todd froze.

He could have sworn he felt a small tremor.

Lance.

_Crap._

Todd turned just in time to see a tsunami of snow coming down on him.

"Ha! That'll teach you to pull your snow ninja shit on me!" Lance called triumphantly from the safety of the porch.

Digging himself out of the snow pile, Todd shook the snow out of his hair and pulled his cap back on. "Aw, that's cold, yo!"

Lance crossed his arms over his chest. "Kinda the point of a snowball fight, Todd."

The smaller mutant pulled himself out of the snowdrift and hopped over to the porch. "Man, I can't wait for summer..." he grumbled as he stomped his feet on the porch to get the snow off of them. "Nice and hot."

"Wuss." Lance laughed as he followed Todd into the house.

Mystique met the two boys as they entered the front hall. "Mind if I ask you two to keep it down today? Mortimer's not feeling too well. I think he spent too much time outside yesterday and he's got a rather nasty cold."

Wanda followed Mystique down the stairs carrying a tray with a tea kettle on it. "You _think_? The poor guy looks like death warmed over. I don't think he could get out of that bed right now if he had to." Scooting past Mystique and the boys, Wanda slipped into the kitchen to clean up the dishes that were on the tray. "Oh," she poked her head out of the kitchen, "and make sure that if you go up to see Mort, don't stand directly in front of him."

"You couldn't have mentioned that _before_ I went to take him a blanket." Pietro grumbled as he came down the stairs.

"Man oh man, Pietro! What happened to you?" Todd exclaimed as he got a look at the speedster.

Pietro's shirt and part of his pants were covered with a translucent green goop that he was doing all he could to avoid touching it. "Mortimer happened!" Pierto grumbled, "Aw crud! This stuff is hardening!"

"Look, I said I was sorry." Mortimer retorted as he leaned over the banister. "Although you might want to hurry and get out of those. It stiffens pretty quickly."

Pietro grimiced. "Yuck! Okay, I call dibs on the shower for the next hour!" Seconds later the door to the bathroom slammed shut and the sound of running water could be heard.

"Mortimer." Mystique turned and looked up at the second floor balcony. "Get your tail back into bed! The last thing I need is for you to be getting yourself sicker than you already are. You're bad enough to be around when you're injured, I don't particuarly want to find out what kind of patient you are when you're sick. So get in your room and start recouperating." Holding his hands up in a signal of mock surrender, Mortimer backed towards his room and closed the door behind him. Returning her gaze to the teens, Mystique dolled out instructions. "I'm going to tell you now, Mortimer hates to be cooped up in bed. I've had to watch him before and you need to keep your eyes on him nearly every moment during the day. Just to make sure that he stays in bed, I'm going to stay up there with him. Todd, I want you to come with me for a minute..."

***

"You bloody little turncoats! Just you wait until I get my hands on the lot of you!"

"What the hell is that?" Wanda rushed out into the main foyer after hearing the commotion coming from the second floor. "What's wrong with Mortimer?"

"Nothing's wrong with him, sis." Pietro called from the living room. Wanda walked in to see the four boys sitting around the television, all apparently unconcerned with the racket upstairs. "Mystique's up there with him. He's perfectly fine."

"Then why's he screaming bloody murder up there?" Wanda asked, planting her hands on her hips.

Todd looked up at her with a sly grin on his face. "That's easy, yo. Mystique gave us ten bucks each to ignore anything from up there. And I got an extra five for sealing the door shut."

"You mean Mystique paied you all to lock her in that room with Mortimer?" Wanda asked, amazed.

"Yeah." Lance laughed. "Didn't think you'd be so mad about it, though."

"Well of course I'm mad." Wanda huffed. "Where's my ten?"

Pietro smirked and pulled a ten dollar bill out of his pocket. "Right here. Orders are to just let them be until dinner time."

"I think I can handle that." Wanda smiled as she sat herself down on the edge of the couch. "Mortimer needs a little prodding in the right direction anyway."

***

"Think they enjoyed this morning?"

Mortimer looked over at Mystique, who was looking out the front window. Outside, the teens were engaged in yet another snowball fight, this one a full-fleged powers fight. Mystique couldn't help but smile a little. When she was their age she hadn't had the freedom or security to use her powers that freely. Her time had been spent hiding.

"Of course they did, luv." Mortimer answered her. "There might not have been a lot under the tree, but I think that this was the first time they've been able to celebrate a proper Christmas in a long time."

"You're probably right." Mystique nodded. "I just..."

"Just want them to have the type of life that you weren't able to." Mortimer finished for her. "I know, Mystique. You're trying to balance a normal life for them with getting them ready for what they'll have to face eventually in the future. And you're doing a good job. They're happy, they're learning, they're going to end up better than either of us did."

"I don't know about you, but I think I ended up pretty well." Mystique laughed, getting up and reaching for a coat that she had tossed over the chair earlier. "Now let's go help them finish up that snowball fight before we herd them back in to start packing for our little get-away to New York."

***

Toad's workshop, not one of Erik's more frequent stops, but for some reason it seemed to be a logical point to stop on his daily walk of the Brotherhood's base. He hadn't been in the room in months. In fact, he had only been inside once before, shortly after he, Mystique and Pyro had returned to the base after the Alkali Lake incident. It had been neat and in good repair then; now was another story. There was a thick layer of dust covering nearly every surface in the room. From the looks of things, Erik had been the first person to be there since their search for Toad and Mystique.

There was still a sharp sense of loss of his two best agents. There had been a personal attachment to them as well as a professional one. They had been the first two mutants to sign on to his cause after his split with Charles. Toad and Mystique both believed in his vision for the place of mutants in the world, they knew fully the hardships that came with being hated by others. Pyro, for all his posturing looked human, normal. Until the boy decided to flaunt his power he could pass as a human. He had never truely suffered. Sabertooth... Well, that animal never thought about much.

Erik slowly walked through the room, looking at the various projects that Toad had been working on, now abandoned and never to be completed. He supposed that he could have cleared this room out ages ago and put it to some better use than a workshop, but he hadn't had the heart to.

There were footprints on the floor - ones that he hadn't noticed when he was here last. They were obviously old, the only reason they had survived this long was because they were preserved in a pile of now-dry oil. One set was of bare feet, obviously Mystique's. The other, heavy military-style boots, belonged to Toad. Familiar enough since they used to cover the ceiling. Bending down, Erik looked at the tracks. Mystique's tracks led into the room, over to the chair that rested in the room. Toad's moved over to the chair, and then away, but then stopped. He hadn't jumped, the footprints didn't show the characteristic scuff marks that would have indicated that Toad had done anything but walk. It was a hurried walk, but a walk nonetheless.

They just vanished.

Frowning, Erik stood back up. From the placement of the last footsteps Toad looked like he was heading towards the door... Trying to get out of the room for some reason or another.

Erik picked his helmet up from where he had placed it on a nearby table. His fingers drummed against it as he puzzled over this new information.

Toad and Mystique had been here when they had some how inexplicably disapeared. Toad had obviously been trying to get out. He was strong, so it wouldn't have been too much to think that he might have been carrying Mystique. Push come to shove, Toad was the faster of the two when it came to distances.

Nothing was coming. No flashes of inspiration, nothing.

With a sigh, Erik sat down in the chair, ignoring the dust that was kicked up. He might as well take advantage of the silence that the workshop offered. No doubt Pyo and Sabertooth were going to be going at each other again upstairs.

He had only been in the chair for a moment when he suddenly felt every nerve in his body go on end. Looking up, his eyes scanned the room for signs of anything that might be out of place.

There was nothing.

Standing up, Erik turned, straining to see if he had missed anything while being seated.

Still nothing.

Yet at the same time, there was something distinctly not right.

Then there was a flash of white, and the world seemed to fall out from under Erik's feet.


End file.
